Individualist-collectivist differences in adolescent decision making and decision styles with Chinese and Anglos

The study examines cross-cultural and gender differences in decision making and decision-making style among adolescent students. The responses of 69 Anglos (31 males and 38 females) and 70 Chinese (34 males and 36 females) to three decision dilemmas are compared in terms of individualist versus collectivist choices, reasons for the choice, and the extent to which four decision styles (avoidance, complacency, hypervigilance, and vigilance) are used. As predicted, compared with Anglos, Chinese students exhibit more collectivist tendencies in decision choices and reasons for choice and score higher on avoidant, complacent, and hypervigilant decision styles with only a small difference in relation to the vigilant style. The relation of the individualist-collectivist dimension to the findings on the decision styles is discussed. Post-hoc exploratory principal components analyses of the style items revealed the existence of a style that might be better labelled as an interdependent style.