Culture and Consistency in Decision Making: A Mediation Model

• Main Authors: CHENG, Chi-Ying, LEE, L., Ji, L. J.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2011
• Subjects: Social Psychology
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/1091
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Consistency is believed to be the foundation of understanding, predicting, and influencing human behavior (Lee, Amir, & Ariely, 2009). However, inconsistency in decision making does exist and could be influenced by a variety of factors such as culture. The present research investigates how culture may influence consistency in decision making. With a sample of 127 Chinese Singaporeans and 95 Caucasian Canadians, we first explored the different consistency tendency between East Asians and Westerners in decision making measured by the number of intransitive errors (Lee, Amir, & Ariely, 2009). The results showed that Caucasian Canadians exhibit higher consistency in decision making than Chinese Singaporeans. Furthermore, we found that this cultural difference was significantly mediated by culture-specific lay theories of change (Ji, Nisbett, & Su, 2001). Theoretical and practical implications on cultural differences in individuals‘ decision making behaviors are discussed.