Cognitive-ecological approaches have emphasised the influence of the information sample on judgements and decisions. These information samples are often actively solicited and thus crucially influenced by the agent’s cognitive processing and goals. This symposium will shed light on how these influences extend to judgements and decisions via the underlying information sampling process. Seidler will discuss how basic cognitive processes in number perception and integration impact economic judgement when information is acquired by sequentially sampling positive and negative numbers. Prager will highlight diagnosticity as a crucial determinant of sampling and judgement behaviour. In a personnel selection context, not only the characteristics of the information on the candidate, but also their interaction with characteristics of the target job profile determined information search, job-fit judgements and confidence. Taking up confidence, McCaughey will examine how accumulated evidence and subjective confidence are used to regulate the amount of sampled information and discuss potential ways of how the two interact. Niese tested the role of sampling in an evaluative conditioning context and will present findings demonstrating that people show a positive evaluative shift after sampling conditioned stimuli more (vs. less frequently), regardless of whether a stimulus is paired with positive or negative unconditioned stimuli. Importantly, this effect is moderated by people’s sampling goals. Biella will explain how the exploration of the social environment strongly depends on whether the information search is interested (information is immediately rewarding conditionally on its pleasantness) or disinterested (information is accumulated for later use). How biased an information sample is depends on which of the two dominates the sampling process. The final discussion will engage the audience in a discussion about how these research questions and insights can be connected in the name of theory integration.