An Experimental Application of Personality Type as an Analogue for Decision-Making Style

Abstract

In the present study, 132 subjects were classified into one of four decision-making styles according to the Myers-Briggs combinations of perception (sensing-intuiting) and judgment (thinking-feeling), specifically, sensing-thinking (ST), sensing-feeling (SF), intuiting-thinking (NT), and intuiting-feeling (NF) styles. They were then asked to perform in an interactive computer-simulated business environment and their cost performance was measured. As hypothesized, analysis of variance indicated significant differences in cost performance among the four decision-making styles. A second hypothesis which predicted that students with the ST style would perform best followed in order by those with NT, SF, and NF styles, was not supported. Over-all, sensing types performed more efficiently than intuiting types. Given that there were significant differences among decision-making styles in terms of cost performance, the present study provides results which support the efficacy of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator as an analogue for decision-making style.