Decision-making preferences for intuition, deliberation, friends or crowds in independent and interdependent societies

When multiple ways of deciding are laid out side-by-side, which does one favour? We conducted experiments in 12 countries (<i>n</i> = 3517 individuals; 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.

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Publication Details

Journal
Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
Published
2025-08-01
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2025.1355
Primary Topic
Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Decision-making preferences for intuition, deliberation, friends or crowds in independent and interdependent societies

Emanuele Fabiano, Ljiljana Pantović, Lixia Yi, Josien Reijer et al.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
article

Decision-making preferences for intuition, deliberation, friends or crowds in independent and interdependent societies

Emanuele Fabiano, Ljiljana Pantović, Lixia Yi, Josien Reijer, Purnima Singh, Kaori Karasawa, Abdellatif Bencherifa, Mohammad Atari, Pablo Quintanilla, Maksim Rudnev, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Igor Grossmann, Joshua Homan, M. Lee, Daniel A. Wilkenfeld, Veli Mitova, Kelli L. Barr, Yuri Sato, Martin Kanovský, Y. Deguchi, Édouard Machery, H. Clark Barrett, Júlia Halamová, Wesley Buckwalter, Jordan Kiper, Brian Porter, Salma Tber, Hackjin Kim, Rockwell F. Clancy, Takaaki Hashimoto, Badr Guennoun, Xiaofei Liu, Anna Dorfman, Norberto Cuji Dahua, German Cuji Dahua, Pedro Romero, Stephen Stich, Ancon Lopez Wilmer
article en

Abstract

When multiple ways of deciding are laid out side-by-side, which does one favour? We conducted experiments in 12 countries (<i>n</i> = 3517 individuals; 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.

Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological SciencesVol. 292(2052)
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (US), Seoul National University (KR), Bar-Ilan University (IL), University of Kansas (US), University of Waterloo (CA), Bunkyo University (JP), Toyo University (JP), University of California, Los Angeles (US), George Mason University (US), University of Pittsburgh (US), Korea University (KR), Hiroshima Bunka Gakuen University (JP), Kyoto University (JP), University of Johannesburg (ZA), University of Massachusetts Amherst (US), Ochanomizu University (JP), University of Alabama at Birmingham (US), Wuhan University (CN), University of Belgrade (RS), International University of Rabat (MA), Nation University (TH), Universidad Antonio Ruiz de Montoya (PE), Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PE), Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IN), Universidad San Francisco de Quito (EC), Comenius University Bratislava (SK), The University of Tokyo (JP), University of Coimbra (PT), Virginia Tech (US), University of Hassan II Casablanca (MA)
John Templeton Foundation, Templeton World Charity Foundation, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Openalex Percentile: Top 81%
Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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