INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND DECISION MAKING STYLES AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Decision making is a process which characterizes every human being. The daily life of every individual contains many moments when easier or harder decisions need to be make. Without making decisions, we cannot live, develop ourselves or make achievements. Many researchers have acknowledged that individuals have habitual tendencies to approach various problems in consistently similar ways, meaning that every individual has a unique approach to decision making. These approaches or decision making tendencies are defined as decision making styles and they represent individual differences among people (decision makers). The purpose of this paper is to explore individual differences and decision making styles among young adults university students. The paper primarily examines the relationship between demographic and psychological characteristics of university students and individual decision making styles. The sample is comprised of 77 Croatian university final year students at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Split. Due to the wide application and confirmed validation of the General Decision - Making Style (GDMS) test, developed by Scott & Bruce (1995), this test is used as the focus of this survey. The results revealed that; females are more intuitive and spontaneous in decision making than males; older students were less prone to use avoidant style in decision making; degree graduate students were more rational in decision making than profesional graduates; students with work experience were more prone to a rational, intuitive and avoidant decision making style; student with external locus of control showed great propensity to avoidant and dependent decision making style; risk prone students showe tendeny toward rational decision making style and those students with higher achievement desire prefered spontaneous decision making style. Considering decision making styles and outcomes of their own decisions, students with a rational style were the most satisfied ones. Following them were students who prefered intuitive and avoidant decision making style, while students characterized by spontaneous style were the least satisfied with the outcomes of their own decisions. Finally, discussion of reserach results and limitations of study with reference to future reserach directions are provided.