This proposal outlines a series of experiments that would explore important questions of judgment and choice under uncertainty and contribute to the understanding of basic decision processes. Central to the study is the development and testing of a theory of response mode effects that will provide new insights regarding alternative explanations for preference reversals in choice, including regret theory and contingent weighting. This topic is receiving a great deal of attention from researchers because of the implications for the study of decision making if systematically different rank orders are obtained depending on the choice between formally equivalent assessment procedures. Thus the project also has general theoretical importance, for the study of contextual effects on decision processes, as well as practical implications for the development of improved decision- aiding tools. Three studies are proposed that extend earlier work of the principal investigator to provide new information on the stability and consistency of preferences and decisions, based on experiments conducted under a variety of conditions and in a variety of contextual settings.
