Do people choose happiness? Anticipated happiness affects both intuitive and deliberative decision-making

Abstract

People make choices among different options for different reasons. We hypothesized that people will choose the options that they believe will make them happier and that this effect of anticipated happiness on decision-making will be moderated by style of thinking (i.e., intuitive or deliberative). In a two-phase online experiment, 15 pairs of options were randomly presented one at a time, and participants indicated the extent to which each option would contribute to their happiness (i.e. anticipated happiness of a choice option). One week later, participants were randomly assigned to make choices on similar pairs of options either by using deliberative thinking or intuitive thinking. Results of a linear mixed-effects model analysis revealed that anticipated happiness influenced choices significantly. However, this occurred independent of whether participants made the choice in a deliberative or in an intuitive mindset. The implications of these findings for understanding the association between decision-making and happiness are discussed.