Abstract
The research reported in this paper follows the perspective that decision making is a meaningful act that conveys information. Furthermore, the potential meanings associated with decision options may affect the decisions themselves. This idea is examined in the contexts of compensation, donation, and exchange. In general, judgments were relation dependent and meaning dependent. Furthermore, the results show nonmonotonicities and limited substitutability in a pattern that challenges straightforward ways of mapping decisions onto a common currency of utility.
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This work was supported by NSF Grant BNS 95-11757 and NIH Grant MH55079. The authors thank David Messick for advice and encouragement in all phases of this research and Rob Goldstone for perceptive comments.
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Medin, D.L., Schwartz, H.C., Blok, S.V. et al. The semantic side of decision making. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 6, 562–569 (1999). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03212964
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03212964