Culture and decision‐making: Investigating cultural variations in the East Asian and North American online decision‐making processes

Research in cross‐cultural psychology suggests that E ast A sians hold holistic thinking styles whereas N orth A mericans hold analytic thinking styles. The present study examines the influence of cultural thinking styles on the online decision‐making processes for H ong K ong C hinese and E uropean C anadians, with and without time constraints. We investigated the online decision‐making processes in terms of (1) information search speed, (2) quantity of information used, and (3) type of information used. Results show that, without time constraints, H ong K ong C hinese, compared to E uropean C anadians, spent less time on decisions and parsed through information more efficiently, and H ong K ong C hinese attended to both important and less important information, whereas E uropean C anadians selectively focused on important information. No cultural differences were found in the quantity of information used. When under time constraints, all cultural variations disappeared. The dynamics of cultural differences and similarities in decision‐making are discussed.