Abstract

This chapter explores empirically how a decision-making process may be influenced by both preferences and context in typical real world situations. We did controlled experiments with military personnel as decision makers, exposing them to crisis management situations (tasks) of varying familiarity (familiar – partly familiar – unfamiliar). In addition, we measured ex ante the decision makers’ preferences for either analytic or intuitive decision making (cognitive style). We found direct effects of degree of task familiarity on actual use of cognitive processing, as well as an interaction effect of degree of familiarity and cognitive style on actual processing. In the familiar and unfamiliar situation (but not in the partly familiar), there was a positive relation between intuitive cognitive style and actual use of intuitive processing, whereas in the unfamiliar situation there was a positive relation between analytic cognitive style and actual use of analytic processing. We discuss theoretical, methodological and practical implications of our findings.