Making a "major" real-life decision: College students choosing an academic major.

College students were surveyed in their 1st year and again 1 year later about their decision regarding which major to declare. They listed criteria and alternatives under consideration, rated the importance of each, and gave overall impressions of each alternative. They also rated their affective responses to the decision-making process. Students listed approximately 7 criteria and 4 alternatives during their 1st year and approximately 7 criteria and 3 alternatives during their 2nd year. Only about half of the criteria and alternatives originally listed appeared the second time. Students' overall impressions correlated with predictions of linear models of decision making. However, confidence and comfort with the decision-making process were not correlated with measures of rational decision making, suggesting that students may have maladaptive expectations about what effective real-life decision making should be.