Evaluating Decision Styles and Self-Efficacy in Medical Decision-Making Tasks

Abstract

Individual differences and task-specific differences in decision making have been examined separately in the past. This study combines the two to empirically examine effects on self-efficacy after deciding whether or not to have a hypothetical risky medical procedure. Self-efficacy was examined using a new scale comprised of a combination of valid scales for general self-efficacy, global self-esteem, and instrumentality. Introductory Psychology students completed the Decision Making Styles Inventory (DMI) to provide information about their analytical, intuitive, and regret-avoidant decision styles. The results from the DMI were used as a covariant in analysis of reported task-specific self-esteem. Participants read different medical scenarios that used different types of task-specific differences: risk-assessments (conditional probabilities and natural frequencies) and length (short and long scenarios) were read by each participant. Results showed that regret-avoidant and intuitive decision styles were strongly correlated with task-specific self-efficacy. The tasks used in the experiment were found to be correlated with different dependent measures, indicating alternative possible task-specific differences. This research suggests that alternative populations should be considered, and that individual differences in decision style have important connections to self-efficacy. It is also suggested that certain task-specific differences may be very sensitive to the size of differences between variables.