New Methods in Decision Neuroscience and their Application to Cross-Cultural Consumer Studies

In this paper, we stress the contribution to basic knowledge of consumer behavior through Decision Neuroscience which combines the methods and theories of Behavioral Decision Making and Neuroscience. We will conclude by describing a planned cross-cultural study of consumer decision making using this approach. Decision Neuroscience represents a more fundamental conceptualization and understanding of the processes underlying decision making by providing converging evidence at the behavioral and neurological levels of the effects of manipulating decision variables. For example, Behavioral Decision Making researchers have provided new insights into consumer behavior by developing controlled tasks of risky decision making, immediate vs. delayed gratification, multiattribute-multioption choice, mental accounting, use of heuristics, and cognitive vs. emotional response systems. Neuroscientists have recently added the following to the mix of tools used to understand decision processes: 1) relating deficits in decision making in target patient groups to impairment of specific areas and circuitry in the brain, thus indirectly linking these areas and circuits to informed decision making; 2) developing brain scanning or imaging techniques such as fMRI to spatially localize brain functions for different behaviors; and 3) developing measures of subconscious emotiona