Dorien Bangma

32 | CHAPTER 2 FDM-I/D: Financial Decision-Making on Intuition or Deliberation test The Financial Decision-Making on Intuition or Deliberation test (FDM-I/D) is used to assess intuitive and deliberative decision-making. The test is based on previous studies assessing the theory that (especially in complex decision situations) individuals make better decisions when decisions are based on feelings or intuition than when their decisions are made consciously and deliberately (Dijksterhuis, 2004; Dijksterhuis et al., 2006; Mikels et al., 2011). The FDM-I/D is a computer test, developed and presented using E-Prime software (Schneider et al., 2002). In the FDM-I/D, participants are presented with information about attributes of four options of four hypothetical products (i.e., sequentially a boat, an apartment, a car and a flight ticket which are presented in separate trials). The attributes of each option are either positively or negatively formulated. Participants are asked to choose the option most people would consider as ‘the best’ option (Figure 2.5a). In each trial, the four options are designed in such a way that one option is the best product with 75% positive attributes. For two options the positive and negative attributes are equally represented and the last option has only 25% positive attributes. Each option is shown consecutively for 10 seconds and thereafter the four options are shown at once for another 10 seconds (Figure 2.5b). The trials differ from each other using two different manipulations (2x2 design). With regard to the first manipulation, the trials are designed in such a way that the participant needs to make his or her decision either in an intuitive manner or in a deliberative manner. During two trials (i.e., boat and apartment) participants are distracted for 2.5 minutes before they have to make a decision by performing a Go-NoGo test immediately after the presentation of the attributes (Figure 2.5c). Because of the Go-NoGo test, participants are unable to think about the options and need to make a decision based on their intuition (i.e., the ‘intuitive approach’). In the other two trials (i.e., flight ticket and car), participants are instructed to make their decision after deliberatively thinking about the positive and negative attributes during a period of 2.5 minutes (i.e., the ‘deliberative approach’; Figure 2.5d). With regard to the second manipulation, two trials (i.e., boat and flight ticket) are considered relatively simple since each option is described with only four attributes. The other two trials (i.e., apartment and car) are considered relatively complex since each option is described with eight attributes. Consequently, there are four conditions in the FDM-I/D, i.e., simple intuitive approach (i.e., boat), complex intuitive approach (i.e., apartment), simple deliberative approach (i.e., flight ticket) and complex deliberative approach (i.e., car). For each product, participants receive 0 points if they choose the best option, -25 points if they choose one of the options with 50% positive attributes and -50 points if they choose the option with only 25% positive attributes. Different scores can be calculated depending on the manipulation of interest, e.g., total scores can be calculated for decisions made after either the intuitive approach or the deliberative approach by adding the scores on the intuitive approach trials and deliberative approach trials, respectively. The FDM-I/D is, however, only used in the study described in chapter 3 and is currently no longer included in the FDM test battery, due to the fact that now-a-days the validity of the underlying theory and comparable tests has been questioned and disproved (Nieuwenstein et al., 2015).