Embodied Decision-Making Style: Below and Beyond Cognition.

There is growing recognition of the essential role of sensorimotor processes as not just a supporter of the cognitive aspects of decision making, but rather as a foundation for all the coordinated physical and mental activities that go into how we make decisions. We illuminate concepts and methods for examining embodied decision making through the lens of Movement Pattern Analysis (MPA). MPA is as a prime example of a conceptually rooted observational methodology for deciphering embodied decision making and for decoding how people differ as decision makers with respect to cognitive motivational priorities.

Beyond Self-Report: Emerging Methods for Capturing Individual Differences in Decision-Making Process.

People vary in the way in which they approach decision-making, which impacts real-world behavior. There has been a surge of interest in moving beyond reliance on self-report measures to capture such individual differences. Particular emphasis has been placed on devising and applying a range of methodologies that include experimental, neuroscience, and observational paradigms.

Inter-rater reliability for movement pattern analysis (MPA): measuring patterning of behaviors versus discrete behavior counts as indicators of decision-making style.

The unique yield of collecting observational data on human movement has received increasing attention in a number of domains, including the study of decision-making style. As such, interest has grown in the nuances of core methodological issues, including the best ways of assessing inter-rater reliability. In this paper we focus on one key topic - the distinction between establishing reliability for the patterning of behaviors as opposed to the computation of raw counts - and suggest that reliability for each be compared empirically rather than determined a priori.

Predicting individual differences in decision-making process from signature movement styles: an illustrative study of leaders.

There has been a surge of interest in examining the utility of methods for capturing individual differences in decision-making style. We illustrate the potential offered by Movement Pattern Analysis (MPA), an observational methodology that has been used in business and by the US Department of Defense to record body movements that provide predictive insight into individual differences in decision-making motivations and actions. Twelve military officers participated in an intensive 2-h interview that permitted detailed and fine-grained observation and coding of signature movements by trained practitioners using MPA.