Decision-making Styles and Personality Traits : A pilot study on the predictive capacity of the TCI regarding the quality of the decision

Abstract

The way individuals make choices and decisions influences their behavior and life style. The choice is not simply based on rational and formal logic, but it’s influenced by many emotional and social factors. Starting from this assumption, some studies investigated the way in which emotions influence decision-making processes, while others explored the possibility that decision-making processes are compromised by the onset of psychiatric pathologies and by the presence of prefrontal cortexlesions, which can induce a radical change in basic preferences of the subject. In our opinion, the decision-making style is strictly connected to the normal personality structure while the relationship with psychopathology can be framed within the non-causal and non-linear effects typical of risk or protection factors. The present pilot study, first, intends to explore the relation between decision-making styles, non-pathological personality traits and psychic disorders; second, it intends to propose a psychometric tool administrable via mobile app, aimed at studying the influence of decision-making styles, related to personality, on the quality and effectiveness of decisions. The present pilot study, was developed in a sample of outpatients in a private psychotherapy service made up of subjects diagnosed with personality disorder. The TCI test was been administered to identify the decision-making styles related to the character traits and temperament. Through statistical analyses, five factors were extracted (5 decision-making styles) and only two personality disorders appear to be related to decision-making styles. This results describe a significant but marginal impact of decisional styles on the pathology of personality, with respect to which they play a role of risk or protection factor.