People in all Cultures make Tough Decisions in the Same Way

People from varied cultures preferred self-reliant decision-making in all situations (but culture did influence the degree).

I thought there was a big difference between collectivist and individualistic cultures in how we make decisions?
Yes, that is an assumption we make. But this large piece of research has come to a different conclusion. But it does note that, yes, culture does have an influence.

What was the research?
The research was pretty impressive because of its internationality. Experiments were conducted with 40 researchers in 12 countries and included two indigenous communities and 13 different languages.

Participants were given six everyday dilemmas and then could choose amongst four decision strategies:

1. Personal intuition
2. Private deliberation
3. Friend’s advice
4. Crowd wisdom
   
   

And what were the results?
Well, in every society the first two were preferred i.e. self-reliant decisions. This shows that self-reliance, either using intuition, or working it out oneself are the natural go-to methods for making decisions, particularly those that are more complex or provide dilemmas.

But you said this was affected by culture?
Yes, even though those two were the most popular methods across all cultures, from Western city dwellers to indigenous hunter gatherers, culture did affect the proportions. The self-reliant effect was strongest in those cultures such as the USA were individualisation is prized and lowest in collective cultures.

So, culture does influence it but the default mode is self-reliant decision making
Yes, that is fascinating and shows that this is basic human psychology. It is why in coaching and many areas in life we promote individual decision-making. But this shows this is a natural preference anyway. So encouraging individual decision-making is just tapping into our natural desire.
It is also empowering.

By Andy Habermacher of Leading Brains
Photocredit: Pexels