Personal need for structure, counterfactual thinking and decision making in women

Abstract

The aim of the study is to clarify the mutual relationships between personal need for structure, counterfactual thinking and decision making styles. The research sample comprised 76 university students. The following scales were administered: Personal Need for Structure (PNS), Melbourne Decision Making Questionnaire (MDMQ), Decision Making Style Questionnaire (DMSQ) and Counterfactual Thinking Questionnaire (CT). Results revealed that personal need for structure and its subfactors do not affect an individual's behavior in the decision making process, but they do affect the decision making style when it comes to the desire for structure or the response to the lack thereof. A strong desire for structure is more related to a more frequent use of rational and dependent decision making style, while a weak response to the lack of structure is related to a more frequent use of the intuitive decision making style and less frequent avoidance decision making style. Additionally, the results show that counterfactual thinking characteristics are related mainly to maladaptive styles of decision making behavior.