The simple and latent patterns of the relationship between rational and intuitive decision-making with personality function and impulsive, risky and self-destructive behavior

Making decisions is an inseparable part of everyday life. Today's society makes choices between different options, consciously or unconsciously (1). However, decision-making is only sometimes a straightforward and logical process for human beings, and people can intuitively make a list of options and select among them (5, 6). Unlike the rational decision-making style, which is characterized by using an organized and logical approach to analyze information and options to make a decision, the intuitive decision-making style strongly depends on predictions, instincts, and emotions. It makes decisions, direct focus on the information flow instead of orderly processing and analyzing it; it therefore, relies on intuition (7). Rational decision-making, which requires thinking about options and considering consequences, is likely to be supported by the cognitive control system, or it may play a role in that system at least. In contrast, intuitive decision-making, in which the individual does not think during decisions, may correspond to acting in the social-emotional system that intuitively responds to the likelihood of receiving a reward (8). Therefore, in comparison to rational decision-making, it seems that intuitive decision-making is more associated with impulsive and risky behaviors (13). Furthermore, rational decision-making is likely to have a positive relationship with actual performance in daily life and personality functioning. Personality functioning, which is measured through the questionnaire of Severity Indices of Personality Problems (20), involves five areas of social concordance, relational functioning, self-control, responsibility, and identity integration that adaptive functioning in each of these areas probably requires applying rational decision-making. The present study intends to clarify the latent patterns of the relationships between variables through a latent profile analysis to have a deeper understanding of the relationship between decision-making styles, risky behavior, and personality functioning, along with applying the simple correlation.

The current research was conducted cross-sectionally in a virtual form, with 428 adults in the society participating in it. Sampling was done in late summer and early fall 2021. The sampling method was voluntary, and the link to questionnaires was provided only to those who were eager to fill them out in groups and social networks while there was no obligation to do it. After translating, reverse translating, and rechecking the text to ensure the equivalence of the Persian items with the main items of the scale of logical and intuitive decision-making style, an online version of the questionnaire along with the questionnaire of personality problem severity index and the questionnaire of impulsive, self-destructive, and risky behavior was prepared. The link to them was provided to those willing to participate in the study. This research attempted to use as few questionnaires as possible so that much time was not required to respond to them and fatigue in participants was avoided. The data collected were analyzed using latent profile analysis, Spearman and Pearson correlation tests, and confirmatory factor analysis by SPSS version 26 and Mplus version 7.

Of 428 participants in this study, 234 (54.9%) were male, 192 (44.9%) were female, 289 (68.2%) were single, and 135 (31.8%) were married. The logical style, with a mean (standard deviation) of 19.68 (4.42), was a more common decision-making style compared to the intuitive style, with a mean (standard deviation) of 15.13 (4.25). There was a significant positive correlation between the logical decision-making style and all areas of adaptive functioning of personality (from r= 0.31 to r= 0.42) and a significant negative correlation between the intuitive decision-making style and all areas of adaptive functioning of personality (from r=-0.19 to r=-0.32). Although the relationship between decision-making styles and risky behavior was weaker than the relationship between these styles and personality functioning, the relationship between rational decision-making and aggression (r=-0.16, P<0.01), gambling (r=-0.17, P<0.01), risky sexual behavior (r=-0.32, P<0.01), reckless behavior (r=-0.32, P<0.01); criminal acts (r=-0.24, P<0.01), the relationship between intuitive decision-making and aggression (r=0.17, P<0.01), self-harm (r=0.14, P<0.01), and criminal acts (r=0.19, P<0.01) were strong enough to be significant at the error level of 1%. The results of using the latent profile analysis to investigate the latent patterns of the relationship between decision-making styles and personality functioning led to the extraction of three profiles (LMR=264.66, P<0.01) that one profile (including 34% of the total individuals) was characterized with high use of intuitive decision-making and low personality functioning. Another profile (involving 27% of the total participants) was characterized by increased use of logical decision-making and high personality functioning. The third profile (involving 38% of the whole individuals) was related to individuals with average personality functioning, and rational decision-making was slightly more than intuitive decision-making in such individuals.

The findings indicated that there was mainly a positive correlation between intuitive decision-making style and risky behaviors and also a positive and negative correlation between rational decision-making style and risky behaviors. However, two points are worth considering with regard to such

first, the correlation between decision-making styles and risky behaviors is mainly weak; second, risky behaviors involve a wide range that are is not uniform and influenced by the decision-making style to a different degree. Compared to risky behaviors, the relationship between personality functioning and decision-making styles is stronger and more uniform. Firstly, these findings affirm that people's performance in a field is closely related to their performance in other fields. Secondly, decision-making styles are one of the essential factors relating to this high performance in these areas. One limitation of the present study is that it is considered exploratory and intends to investigate relationships that have been less assessed prior to this. Hence, comparing the comparison of results with those of other studies is impossible. Therefore, conducting similar research on different groups can lead to more certainty about the present research findings and the role of decision-making styles in the daily performance of people.