The Social Context of Decisions

The past 40 years of psychological research on decision making has identified a number of important cognitive biases. However, the psychological study of decision making tends to focus on individuals making decisions in isolation. This article explores the social context of individual decision making by considering three lenses: individual contributions in social decision processes, individuals as social products, and individuals as sources of social preferences. The social context of decision making both improves decision making by allowing diverse knowledge to be pooled and creates shared perspectives'including shared blind spots. The article offers conjectures on managerial insight about social settings that can inform future research.

Duke Scholars

Author Richard P. Larrick Fuqua School of Business