Emotion Regulation and Action Control as Predictors for Decision Making Style

The present study was aimed to investigate if decision making styles can be predicted by emotion regulation and action control or not.

The Participants included 422 students (164 male and 258 female) of Shiraz University that were selected using a multistage random cluster sampling method. In order to gather the required data, General Decision Making Styles scale (Scott and Bruce, 1995), Emotion Regulation scale (John and Gross, 2003), and Action Control scale were used. Multiple regression (enter method) was used for analyzing the data.

Results indicated that the Avoidant and Rational, but not Intuitive decision making styles could be partly predicted by Emotion Regulation and Action Control. It is shown that Spontaneous and Dependent decision making styles can only be predicted using Action Control.

Among the variables of emotion regulation and action control, the strongest predictor for decision making styles is action control. Further research can examine the role of individual factors such as five personality factors as well as family variables in decision making.