Extended dating couples decision-making strategies about eating: A comparison to married couples

Eating is an important component to the courtship stage of relationships. Therefore, the purpose of the current experiment was to identify common decision-making strategies of individuals in extended dating relationships. By doing so, this study was a replication and extension of previous findings by Bonds-Raacke [Bonds-Raacke, J. M. (2006). Using cluster analysis to examine husband-wife decision-making. The Psychological Record, 56 (4), 521–550] on married couples decisions related to eating. Participants for the current study were presented with restaurant menus and asked to rate how likely they would be to eat at each restaurant. The task was completed first independently and then jointly. Results indicated that couples in extended dating relationships employed five common decision-making strategies when jointly selecting a restaurant. Finally, the results revealed that more common decision-making strategies were present among dating couples than married couples.