Decision-making preferences for intuition, deliberation, friends, or crowds in independent and interdependent societies
Year: 2025
Type: preprint
Abstract: When multiple ways of deciding are laid out side-by-side, which does one favor? We conducted experiments in 12 countries (N=3,517; 13 languages; two Indigenous communities), with adults choosing among four decision strategies—personal intuition, private deliberation, friends’ advice, or crowd wisdom—when working through six everyday dilemmas. In every society, self-reliant decisions (intuition or deliberation) were most commonly preferred and considered the wisest. Expectations for fellow citizens, however, were mixed: advice from friends was expected about as often as self-reliant routes. The self-reliance tilt was strongest in cultures and individuals high in independent self-construal and need for cognition, and weakest where interdependence and self-transcendent reflection were salient. The same patterns emerged when examining ratings of each strategy’s utility, and oral protocols with Indigenous groups. Self-reliance appears the modal preference across cultures, but its strength is predictably tempered when cultures—and individuals within them—construe the self in relational rather than autonomous terms.
Source: PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints)
Authors: Igor Grossmann, Maksim Rudnev, Wilmer G. Ancon Lopez, Mohammad Atari, Kelli Barr, Abdellatif Bencherifa, Wesley Buckwalter, Rockwell F. Clancy, German Cuji Dahua, Norberto Cuji Dahua, Yasuo Deguchi, Anna Dorfman, Emanuele Fabiano, Badr Guennoun, Julia Halamova, Takaaki Hashimoto, Joshua Homan, Martin Kanovský, Kaori Karasawa, Hackjin Kim, Jordan Kiper, Minha Lee, Xiaofei Liu, Veli Mitova, rukmini bhaya nair, Ljiljana Pantovic, Brian Porter, Pablo Quintanilla, Josien Reijer, Pedro P. Romero, Yuri Sato, Purnima Singh, Salma Tber, Daniel A. Wilkenfeld, Lixia Yi, Stephen Stich, H. Clark Barrett, Edouard Machery
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4411025873