Subject. The article focuses on the decision-making mechanism used by economic agents given the existing social constraints.
Objectives. We devise applied toolkit to study how socio-economic constraints transform the decision-making mechanism used by economic agents.
Methods. The study involves means of the expert survey, the method that streamlines economic knowledge.
Results. Social constraints are illustrated to influence the decision-making mechanism used by economic agents, assuming that the individual mind relies on specific mechanisms to make judgments and decisions. Generally, the mechanisms are very useful, however they may generate serious errors during the decision-making process. Given the social constraints, economic agents were found to follow four mental models to make their decisions in case of the full or partial uncertainty, i.e. the representative relevance, accessibility, relations, heuristics (modeling).
Conclusions and Relevance. The scientific ideas herein show that the inner architecture of a choice an individual makes determines his or her decisions. The decisions often depend on the contextual environment that gives external signals perceived by the individual while evaluating alternative ways. The findings can possibly be used as a mechanism to manage the consumer choice.
