The Role of Perfectionism and Emotional Regulation in Explaining Decision-Making Styles

Abstract

Individuals differ in the manner they approach decision making, namely their decision-making styles. While some people typically make all decisions fast and without hesitation, others invest more effort into deciding even about small things and evaluate their decisions with much more scrutiny. The goal of the present study was to explore the relationship between decision-making styles, perfectionism and emotional processing in more detail. Specifically, 300 college students majoring in social studies and humanities completed instruments designed for assessing maximizing, decision commitment, perfectionism, as well as emotional regulation and control. The obtained results indicate that maximizing is primarily related to one dimension of perfectionism, namely the concern over mistakes and doubts, as well as emotional regulation and control. Furthermore, together with the concern over mistakes and doubts, maximizing was revealed as a significant predictor of individuals' decision commitment. The obtained findings extend previous reports regarding the association between maximizing and perfectionism and provide relevant insights into their relationship with emotional regulation and control. They also suggest a need to further explore these constructs that are, despite their complex interdependence, typically investigated in separate contexts and domains.