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Reasons As Carriers Of Culture: Dynamic Vs. Dispositional Models Of Cultural Influence On Decision Making, Donnel A. Briley, Michael W. Morris, Itamar Simonson

Donnel A Briley

We argue that a way culture influences decisions is through the reasons that individuals recruit when required to explain their choices. Specifically, we propose that cultures endow individuals with different rules or principles that provide guidance for making decisions, and a need to provide reasons activates such cultural knowledge. This proposition, representing a dynamic rather than dispositional view of cultural influence, is investigated in studies of consumer decisions that involve a trade-off between diverging attributes, such as low price and high quality. Principles enjoining compromise are more salient in East Asian cultures than in North American culture, and accordingly, we …