Behavioral and Brain Functions

Three experiments studied the hedonicity of decision making. Participants rated their pleasure/ displeasure while reading item-sentences describing political and social problems followed by different decisions (Questionnaire 1). Questionnaire 2 was multiple-choice, grouping the items from Questionnaire 1. In Experiment 1, participants answered Questionnaire 2 rapidly or slowly. Both groups selected what they had rated as pleasant, but the 'leisurely' group maximized pleasure less. In Experiment 2, participants selected the most rational responses. The selected behaviors were pleasant but less than spontaneous behaviors. In Experiment 3, Questionnaire 2 was presented once with items grouped by theme, and once with items shuffled. Participants maximized the pleasure of their decisions, but the items selected on Questionnaires 2 were different when presented in different order. All groups maximized pleasure equally in their decisions. These results support that decisions are made predominantly in the hedonic dimension of consciousness. Background "Gut reaction" is efficacious" [1] For several decades, research in judgment and decision making has examined behavioral violations of rational choice theory [2,3]. For example, Baron showed convincingly that many decisions appear to be irrational, as if decision-makers were indifferent to the consequences of their decisions [2]. Erev and Roth showed that decisions in gambling situations are made at low rationality, the gamblers' aim being to maximize reinforcement [4,5]. Berridge concluded that a rational decision is a decision that maximizes utility (with all the ambiguity contained in the word utility) [6]. Epstein's [7] proposal of a "dual-process" in decision making casts some light on that experiential" rational, abstract, and analytical treatment of the available information, and a second one, "experiential" and "emotionally driven". According to Epstein, both systems fulfill different functions. Loewenstein and co-workers [8] proposed also an alternative theoretical perspective, the riskas-feelings hypothesis, that highlights the role of affect experienced at the moment of decision making. Similar views were expressed by Reyna & Farley [9]: "Risky decisions making can be roughly divided into a) those [. ] that adhere to a rational behavioral decision-making framework [. ] and b) those that emphasize non-deliberative reaction to the perceived gists or prototypes in the immediate decision environment. " The experiential system is present in animals and leads to effortless decisions. The analytical system emerged more recently in humans with the development of language. The present experiments were developed in the same framework, exploring hedonicity pitted against several variables involved in Published: 11 September 2007 Behavioral and Brain Functions 2007, 3:45 doi:10.1186/1744-9081-3-45 Received: 18 May 2007 Accepted: 11 September 2007 This article is available from: http://www.behavioralandbrainfunctions. com/content/3/1/45 © 2007 Cabanac and Bonniot-Cabanac; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.