Fire and Ice: Cultural Influences on Complex Problem Solving

M. Teresa Tuason, C. Dominik Güss

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

Abstract

Previous research on complex problem solving (CPS) has been conducted mostly in western-industrialized countries and has often focused on individual differences such as intelligence to explain performance. We tested a model postulating that cultural values influence CPS strategies and CPS strategies in turn influence performance when controlling for individual difference variables. Participants were 535 students in five countries: Brazil, India, Germany, the Philippines, and the United States. They had to protect cities from fires and prevent goods from perishing in two microworlds with different demands. Fit indexes show reasonable fit of the theoretical model in the two microworlds. Results highlight the influence of culture on CPS.
Original languageAmerican English
Pages (from-to)1942-1947
Number of pages6
JournalProceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society
Volume31
StatePublished - 2009
Event31st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: CogSci 2009 - Amsterdam, Netherlands
Duration: Jul 29 2009Aug 1 2009

Keywords

  • Complex problem solvign
  • Dynamic Decision Making
  • Culture
  • Values
  • Strategies
  • Performance
  • Horizontal and Vertical Individualism and Collectivism

Disciplines

  • Psychology
  • Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering
  • Computational Engineering

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