Global study reveals the surprising habit behind tough decisions
Insights from investigation of decision-making in people in 12 countries could improve teamwork and cross-cultural relations.
- Date:
- August 13, 2025
- Source:
- University of Waterloo
- Summary:
- A sweeping international study has revealed that when faced with complex decisions, people across cultures—from bustling megacities to remote Amazon communities—tend to rely on their own judgment rather than seeking advice. The research, spanning over 3,500 participants in 12 countries, challenges the long-held belief that self-reliance is primarily a Western trait. While cultural values influence how strongly individuals lean on their inner voice, the preference for private reflection remains a shared human tendency.
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An international study surveying people in a dozen countries found that when it comes to making complex decisions, people all over the world tend to reflect on their own, rather than seek advice.
Researchers from the University of Waterloo led the new study that surveyed more than 3,500 people from megacities to small Indigenous communities in the Amazon rainforest to learn how they make decisions. This work is the broadest test of decision-style preferences across cultures to date.
The researchers say that by understanding that even in interdependent societies most people prefer to go with the decision made by themselves, irrespective of what others say, can help clarify cross-cultural misunderstandings and realize that we all appear to be juggling similar internal debates.
"Realizing that most of us instinctively 'go it alone' helps explain why we often ignore good counsel, be it for health tips or financial planning, despite mounting evidence that such counsel may help us make wiser decisions," said Dr. Igor Grossmann, professor in the Department of Psychology at Waterloo and first author on the paper. "This knowledge can help us design teamwork better by working with this self-reliant tendency and letting employees reason privately before sharing advice that they might reject."
The study upends the belief that westerners work things out themselves while the rest of the world leans on others. In fact, intuition and self-reflection beat out advice from friends or crowdsourcing in all countries studied. The amount of that preference varied, depending on the level at which a culture values independence or interdependence.
"Our take-home message is that we all look inward first, yet the wisest moves may happen when solo reflections are shared with others," Grossmann said. "What culture does is controls the volume knob, dialing up that inner voice in highly independent societies and softening it somewhat in more interdependent ones."
Nearly 40 authors contributed to this work as part of the Geography of Philosophy Project, which is led by Dr. Edouard Machery, from the University of Pittsburgh.
The study, Decision-making preferences for intuition, deliberation, friends or crowds in independent and interdependent societies, appears in Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences.
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Materials provided by University of Waterloo. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
- Igor Grossmann, Maksim Rudnev, Anna Dorfman, Mohammad Atari, Kelli Barr, Abdellatif Bencherifa, Wesley Buckwalter, Rockwell F. Clancy, German Cuji Dahua, Norberto Cuji Dahua, Yasuo Deguchi, Ancon Lopez Wilmer, Emanuele Fabiano, Badr Guennoun, Julia Halamová, Takaaki Hashimoto, Joshua Homan, Martin Kanovský, Kaori Karasawa, Hackjin Kim, Jordan Kiper, Minha Lee, Xiaofei Liu, Veli Mitova, Rukmini Nair, Ljiljana Pantovic, Brian Porter, Pablo Quintanilla, Josien Reijer, Pedro P. Romero, Yuri Sato, Purnima Singh, Salma Tber, Daniel Wilkenfeld, Lixia Yi, Stephen Stich, H. Clark Barrett, Edouard Machery. Decision-making preferences for intuition, deliberation, friends or crowds in independent and interdependent societies. Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences, 13 August 2025 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2025.1355
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