CULTURED MINDS
An Investigation of How Culture Affects Decision Making
FOLK SYSTEMS
Work by (Amir, Lobel & Ariely, 2000) asserts that sometimes consumers follow general rules to make decisions instead of working out individual preferences. An example is consumers’ outrage when Coca-Cola in Brazil proposed a vending machine that changed prices depending on the temperature that hour. The angry consumers were not evaluating whether they were willing to buy a coke for an extra 20c on a hot day, instead they were motivated by a rule - Coca-Cola should not be charging people extra just because of the weather (King, Charls & Narayandas, 2000).
It is clear that many such rules will be influenced by cultural norms and context. Perhaps in a more barter-oriented culture, where prices are expected to change at the whim of the seller and bargaining expertise of the buyer, the idea of a coke changing price would be accepted! (Weber, Ames & Blais, 2005) link this sentiment to cultural dimensions and note that people from more collectivistic cultures use rules or precedent even more frequently than logic to guide their decisions compared to people from individualistic cultures. It’s lucky Coca-Cola never got around to deploying their temperature-sensitive vending machines in Asia!
Status Quo Bias
Status quo bias is the tendency for people to choose passive decisions which ‘stick to the status quo’ (Samuelson & Zeckhauser, 1988). Consumer research in Western countries has noted that status quo bias is particularly strong in high-uncertainty contexts. In these cases, consumers will stick with what they know e.g purchase the incubent (old) brand rather than trying a new one (Muthukrishnan,1995). So status quo bias will likely be exaggerated in high uncertainty avoidance and/or a prevention focus cultures.