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

Grossmann I.; Rudnev M.; Dorfman A.; Atari M.; Barr K.; Bencherifa A.; Buckwalter W.; Clancy R.F.; Dahua G.C.; Dahua N.C.; Deguchi Y.; Wilmer A.L.; Fabiano E.; Guennoun B.; Halamová J.; Hashimoto T.; Homan J.; Kanovský M.; Karasawa K.; Kim H.; Kiper J.; Lee M.; Liu X.; Mitova V.; Nair R.; Pantovic L.; Porter B.; Quintanilla P.; Reijer J.; Romero P.P.; Sato Y.; Singh P.; Tber S.; Wilkenfeld D.; Yi L.; Stich S.; Barrett H.C.; Machery E. · Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2025) · DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2025.1355

Resumen

When multiple ways of deciding are laid out side-by-side, which does one favour? We conducted experiments in 12 countries (n = 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.

Instituciones: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú; Universidad Antonio Ruiz de Montoya