East–West Contrasts in Decision Making: Evidence from Chinese Canadians and European Canadians

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-541-6_107How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Cultural Difference; Decision Making; Biculturalism; Acculturation

Abstract

Psychological science has historically relied on WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) populations, raising questions about the generalizability of its findings. This study extends cultural psychology by investigating decision-making among first-generation Chinese Canadians (n = 107) and European Canadians (n = 96) across five domains: submission to authority, filial piety, emotional expressiveness, sexual conservativeness, and water-drinking habits. Participants were randomly assigned to a cultural priming condition (Chinese, Western, neutral) and rated their likelihood of engaging in specific behaviors within hypothetical scenarios. Results revealed a consistent main effect of culture. Compared to European Canadians, Chinese Canadians demonstrated greater submission to authority, stronger filial piety, lower emotional expressiveness, higher sexual conservativeness, and a greater preference for warm water over cold. Notably, cultural priming had no significant effect. These findings highlight the resilience of cultural norms and the enduring influence of heritage culture on first-generation immigrants. The study underscores the importance of considering cultural heritage in multicultural societies and suggests future research may examine second-generation immigrants to clarify the mechanisms of cultural persistence and the dynamics of bicultural adaptation.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Xing Huang
AU  - Wei Qi Elaine Perunovic
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/02/26
TI  - East–West Contrasts in Decision Making: Evidence from Chinese Canadians and European Canadians
BT  - Proceedings of the 2025 5th International Conference on Culture, Design and Social Development (CDSD 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 964
EP  - 970
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-541-6_107
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-541-6_107
ID  - Huang2026
ER  -