The primacy of the inner self in decision-making preferences across cultures

Abstract

We investigated the universality versus cultural specificity of preferences for internal decision-making strategies (intuition/deliberation) over external strategies (advice from friends or crowds). Participants from samples spanning five continents (N=3,517), including Indigenous communities, considered scenarios involving personal and social decision-making. Across cultures, most participants preferred and felt better using internal strategies, although they believed their peers would seek external advice, revealing a discrepancy between personal preferences and perceived group norms. While internal strategies were generally favored in each culture, the magnitude of internal endorsement varied: individualists and those with a higher need for cognition favored internal strategies more, whereas collectivists and those with an outsider view reflective style favored them somewhat less. These findings challenge the traditional view of non-Western cultures as predominantly advice-following and have implications for understanding the interplay between individual and social learning, and for the design of decision-support systems in different societies.