پرکردن شکاف بین تصمیم مشترک و فردی :اولویت های شالوده شکنی در روابط

Most choice research has studied how people make decisions within a narrowly defined choice context and has not paid sufficient attention to the role of social context. We commend Simpson, Griskevicius, and Rothman for directing the attention of choice researchers to the study of joint decision making and current theories on relationships. Building on SGR, we propose that a relationship partner's influence varies with the type of decision at hand and with situational factors. We propose four possible types of decision episodes, defined by whether the decision stage and the consumption stage each occur singly or jointly, and explore how the decision type impacts the extent to which a decision maker will take a partner's preferences into account. We further discuss how situational factors, such as the environment in which the decision is made, as well as the mindset and cognitive resources of the decision maker, are likely to influence decision outcomes.

Most research on choice has focused on the process and the outcome of a decision made by an individual. A fundamental finding in this literature is that preferences are often constructed: a decision maker may place different weights on the same attributes depending on the choice context, defined as the set of options under consideration (Simonson, 2008). A limitation of the research on preference construction has been an overly narrow focus on the choice context, rather than the consideration of the broader social context in which many choices are made. Simpson, Griskevicius, and Rothman (henceforth SGR) broaden the focus by incorporating an important dimension of the social context: the influence of a relationship partner's preferences on a target individual's decision making. Our objective in this commentary is to build on SGR by considering how a partner's influence varies with the type of decision as well as with situational factors relevant to the decision. We commend SGR for drawing attention to the topic of joint decision making. We agree with the authors that considering a relationship partner's preferences, and not only the target individual's preferences, is an important addition to the study of decision-making that has previously been underappreciated in the literature. SGR propose a dyadic model of decision making to outline how a relationship partner's attitudes and preferences can influence the target decision maker's private attitudes, his or her expressed preferences, and the final choice outcome. Additionally, the authors consider how recent relationship theories, such as closeness, power dynamics, interdependence, and attachment style, may impact the amount of influence that each partner exerts over the other partner's attitudes, preferences, and the joint decision outcome. While most of the examples that SGR consider involve two partners jointly deciding and then jointly consuming the chosen product, in their opening scenario, the authors examine an interesting case in which a relationship partner's preferences may also influence those of a target individual who is deciding alone. This vignette suggests that there may be two different stages for any choice: the decision stage and the consumption stage. We propose that the type of influence and the degree of influence that a partner's preferences exert on a target decision maker's choice may vary systematically depending on whether only the decision stage, only the consumption stage, or both, occur jointly. Additionally, we build on the relationship style moderators proposed by SGR and identify different situational factors, such as the environment in which the decision is made, as well as the cognitive resources and the mindset of the decision maker, that might affect the extent to which a decision maker would take a partner's preferences into account.

SGR make an important contribution by highlighting that decision makers often consider not only their own, but also their relationship partners' preferences when making choices.We agree that it is useful to integrate dyadic decision making methodology and the knowledge of relationship theories into the choice literature to generate new insights. We build on the preference construction findings in individual decision making to propose that the weights assigned to a partner's preferences vary as a function of several structural factors of the decision: the nature of the decision episode (whether the decision stage and the consumption stage are joint or separate) and situational factors, including the decision environment, available resources, and the mindset of the decision maker. We hope that future research can investigate the different forms of partner influence that SGR consider and test how the influence changes with the factors that they and we identify.