Making the Right Decision: Intensifying the Worth of a Chosen Option

Abstract

When people make decisions, they want the outcomes of their choice to be as positive as possible. But they also want the decision-making process itself to be conducted in the right way. Though this is often described as making decisions that are moral or ethical, it also includes making decisions that are appropriate-that are suitable and fitting. We focus on this latter, overlooked interpretation, and propose that making the right decision is about effectively establishing what is true and real. We discuss three factors that can lead people to experience their decision-making process as being right: (1) making a decision in the "right way"; (2) making a decision in a manner that "feels right" given the decision maker's current motivational orientation; and (3) making a decision based upon a "shared reality" with others. We review evidence that making the right decision in each of these ways intensifies the worth of a given chosen option.

How regulatory focus–mode fit impacts variety‐seeking

“…While promotion emphasizes growth and opportunities, prevention emphasizes safety, duty, and security (Crowe & Higgins, 1997). Hence, promotion results in a desire to change the status quo to attain a better state, while prevention results in a desire to maintain a current satisfactory status quo to avoid worse states (Higgins et al, 2020). Promotion results in eager goal pursuit, while prevention results in vigilant goal pursuit (Crowe & Higgins, 1997; Higgins, 1998).…”

The contribution of activity theory to modeling multi-actor decision-making: A focus on human capital investments

“…According to us, an interesting theory that can be adapted to the study of MADM – with the aim of favoring the sharing of meanings among decision-makers – is that of shared reality ( Echterhoff, 2012 ). Precisely, according to Echterhoff and Higgins (2018) , two well-known exponents of social cognition, shared reality is the experience of having in common with others inner states about the world , that is the perceived relevance of something , as well as feelings , beliefs , or evaluation s. As a result, the perception of inner states’ commonality with others fosters the perceived truth of those inner states and intensifies the experience of making the right decision ( Higgins et al, 2020 ). Therefore, shared reality goes beyond the mere duplication of another person’s emotions, as in the case of emotional contagion 7 ( Neumann and Strack, 2000 ).…”

From washing hands to washing consciences and polishing reputations

“…Research has shown that the experience of shared reality predicts certainty (Rossignac-Milon, Bolger, Zee, Boothby, & Higgins, 2020); for example, conversation partners discussing ambiguous images who create a greater sense of shared reality feel more certain of what is truly going on in the images. We propose that cleansing behaviors rooted in shared practices feel truly clean, because people believe they clean in the right way (Higgins, Nakkawita, Rossignac-Milon, Pinelli, & Jun, 2020). For example, people colloquially express the belief that their shared cultural practices surrounding toilet routines are cleaner than those of other countries (e.g., people raised to use toilet paper believe that toilet paper is superior to bidets, and vice versa).…”