People’s Decision‑Making: Boosting Teamwork and Building Cross‑Cultural Harmony

Global Study Reveals Universal Self‑Reliance in Decision‑Making

According to a comprehensive Canadian research effort, people across the world—including megacities and remote Amazon communities—tend to trust their own judgment when faced with complex choices, rather than seeking external advice.

Key Findings

• Over 3,500 participants in 12 countries were surveyed.
• Individuals from interdependent societies still prefer private reflection over collective counsel.
• Intuition consistently outperforms friends or crowdsourcing in every culture studied.

Implications for Team Dynamics

Lead researcher Dr. Igor Grossmann, professor of psychology at Waterloo, notes that understanding this innate “go it alone” tendency can help design more effective collaboration. By allowing team members to reason privately before sharing advice, organizations may avoid premature rejection of helpful insights.

Reassessing Cultural Stereotypes

The study challenges the long‑held belief that Westerners are intrinsically self‑sufficient while the rest of the world relies on others. Instead, it shows that introspection is a shared human trait, with the volume of this inner voice modulated by cultural values of independence or interdependence.

Relevance to Artificial Intelligence

While AI increasingly assists decision‑making, humans remain the final decision makers in critical scenarios. The research supports a “human‑in‑the‑loop” model, where AI provides support but humans make the ultimate choice.

The study appears in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Science journal under the title “Decision‑making preferences for intuition, deliberation, friends or crowds in independent and interdependent societies.”