CROSS-CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN SELF-REPORTED DECISION-MAKING STYLE ANDCONFIDENCE

The Melbourne Decision Making Questionnaire (Mann, Burnett, Radford, & Ford, 1997) measures self-reported decision-making coping patterns. T he questionnaire was administered to samples of University students in the US (N = 475), Australia (N = 262), New Zealand (N = 260), Japan ( N = 359), Hong Kong (N = 281), and Taiwan (N = 414). As predicted, stu dents from the three Western, individualistic cultures (US, Australia, and New Zealand) were more confident of their decision-making ability than students from the three East Asian, group-oriented cultures (Jap an, Hong Kong, Taiwan). No cross-cultural differences were found in sc ores on decision vigilance (a careful decision-making style). However, compared with Western students, the Asian students tended to score hi gher on buck-passing and procrastination (avoidant styles of decision making) as well as hypervigilance (a panicky style of decision making) . Japanese students scored lowest on decision self-esteem and highest on procrastination and hypervigilance. It was argued that the conflict model and its attendant coping patterns is relevant for describing an d comparing decision making in both Western and Asian cultures.