The Relationship between the Brain Behavioral Inhibition and Activation Systems (BIS/BAS) with Decision Making Styles: The Moderating Effect of Handedness

According to the studies, biological and endogenous factors can affect cognitive processes. The aim of the present research was to study the relationship between decision-making styles with the brain behavioral inhibition and activation systems and handedness.
The present study was descriptive correlational research with regression analysis. The participants included 269 university students selected from Bonab and Tabriz Payame Noor Universities via multistage random sampling. They completed the decision-making styles questionnaire of Scott and Bruce (1995), the brain behavioral inhibition and activation systems (BIS/BAS) questionnaire of Carver and White (1994), and Edinburgh’s handedness questionnaire. Data were analyzed by Pearson’s product-moment correlation, standard multiple regression analysis, and moderated regression analysis.
Findings: The results indicated that there is a relationship between handedness with brain behavioral inhibition and activation systems, and avoidant decision-making style. There was a significant relationship between behavioral inhibition system with all types of decision-making styles, and between behavioral activation system with all three types of avoidant, rational, and intuitive decision-making style except dependent style; and both brain behavioral systems were able to predict the decision making styles. Besides, moderated regression analysis verified the moderating effect of handedness in mediating the relation between behavioral inhibition system (BIS) and avoidant decision-making style.
Overall, the results of the study confirm that cognitive processes, like decision-making, are directly or indirectly influenced by endogenous and biological factors such as brain behavioral systems and hemisphere superiority.