the study of the influence of sacred ethical values on decision making, decision difficulty and the related emotions (case study: in faculty of humanities of university of guilan)

the concept of decision making, factors influencing it and the related outcomes have always attracted researchers. the purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of sacred values on decision making, decision difficulty and the resulting negative emotions. thus, a sample of 288 students from the university of guilan were chosen as subjects and were required to complete a standard questionnaire in order to assess these concepts. this questionnaire contained three trade-offs: tragic (two conflicting sacred values), taboo (a sacred value against a secular value) and routine (two conflicting secular values). the independent variables of this study are sacred values and the types of trade-off and the dependent variables include negative emotions and decision difficulty. as expected, the subjects regarded the tragic trade-off as more difficult than the other two trade-offs and more negatively emotion-laden as well. but contrary to expectations, the subjects did not consider the taboo trade-off to be easier than the routine one. moreover, in some cases the female students considered the situations to be more difficult and more negatively emotion-laden. the results support the belief that sacred values influence decision making and the resultant issues.