Can Decisiveness Be Measured When Making Choices?
Psychologists use various tools to measure indecisiveness and study decision-making. One popular questionnaire—the Frost Indecisiveness Scale—asks participants to rate statements from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). These statements include:
- I tend to delay making decisions
- I find it hard to plan my free time
- I often worry about making the wrong choice
- It seems like I take a long time to decide even on small things
Using this scale, psychologists have shown that indecisiveness often stems from perfectionism. Perfectionists fear the shame or regret that comes with a bad decision, so they postpone deciding until they feel certain they’re right. (Sometimes, that confidence never comes.)
This frustration can block happiness. Eric Rassin, psychology professor at the Dutch Erasmus University, found that the higher someone scores on this scale, the less satisfied they tend to be with life. They’re less likely to agree with statements like “My life circumstances are excellent” or “If I could live my life over, I’d change almost nothing.”
A Fresh Take on Studying Decision-Making
At first glance, indecisiveness seems like a purely negative trait. But recent research reveals it has perks—it protects us from some common thinking traps. This insight comes from Jana-Maria Hohnsbehn, PhD, and Iris Schneider, social psychology professor at TU Dresden (Technische Universität Dresden), in their recent study.
Instead of the Frost Indecisiveness Scale, Hohnsbehn and Schneider focused on the “ambivalence trait,” which digs into the conflicting thoughts and feelings behind someone’s judgments and decisions (or lack thereof). For example, participants rate statements like:
- My thoughts are often contradictory
- I often feel stuck between two sides of a problem
- Sometimes, when I think about a topic, it feels like I’m physically switching from one side to the other
“If these statements resonate with you, your ambivalence trait is probably high.”
As expected, people with a high ambivalence trait take longer to make decisions. But Hohnsbehn and Schneider found they’re also less prone to bias when they finally decide.
For example, in one experiment, participants read scenarios like this:
You meet someone and want to find out if they’re an introvert or an extrovert. You assume they’re extroverted. Which of these two questions would you ask?
- Do you like spending time alone at home?
- Do you enjoy going to parties?
Many pick the second question, but that’s a sign of confirmation bias—the questioner only seeks info that matches their assumption instead of looking for evidence they might be wrong. Hohnsbehn and colleagues found that people with a high ambivalence trait are less likely to ask that second question. Instead, they make sure they have the right info before deciding, rather than just following their assumptions.
