The Role of Decision Making Styles in Explaining Happiness

Abstract

In pursuit of happiness, individuals often choose activities which may be influenced by their general decision making styles that reflect habitual ways of choosing and making decisions. The present study investigated the associations of such tendencies, namely individuals’ temporal perspectives that included present and future focus, and maximizing, with persons’ orientations to happiness and their relevance for subjective well-being. The obtained results confirmed previous reports indicating the relevance of orientations to happiness for subjective well-being. With respect to the decision making styles, they revealed positive correlations with regard to future focus with orientations to meaning and engagement that were also negatively associated with present focus. In addition, present focus was positively correlated with orientation to pleasure. With respect to maximizing, this decision making style was positively associated with all three orientations. While assessing the relevance of decision making styles for subjective well-being, the regression analyses indicated that higher levels of maximizing directly predicted higher levels of negative affect and lower life satisfaction. Next, mediation and network methodologies revealed significant mediating effects of orientations to meaning and engagement with respect to the relationships between future focus with life satisfaction and positive affect, orientation to meaning with respect to the associations between present focus with life satisfaction and positive affect, and orientation to engagement with respect to the relationships between maximizing with life satisfaction and positive affect. These results extend previous knowledge, indicating the relevance of individuals’ decision making styles for their conceptualizations of happiness, as well as subjective well-being.