The Decision Making Tendency Inventory: A new measure to assess maximizing, satisficing, and minimizing

Abstract

We introduce the Decision Making Tendency Inventory (DMTI), a new scale for measuring the decision-making tendencies to maximize, to satisfice, and to minimize. The scale has promising psychometric properties. Our findings show that the revealed tendencies are independent from each other and from the specific decision-making domain. Each factor is differently related to a set of indices of well-being and functioning, suggesting intriguing considerations regarding the distinctive characteristics of maximizing, satisficing, and minimizing. The DMTI extends previous research on maximizing and might contribute to explain the inconsistent results in the literature. Directions for future research are suggested.