@misc{UrbigMuehlfeldWitteloostuijn, author = {Urbig, Diemo and M{\"u}hlfeld, Katrin Susanne and Witteloostuijn, Arjen van}, title = {Country Differences in Default Social Heuristics and the Foreign Language Effect}, series = {Academy of Management Proceedings}, volume = {2020}, journal = {Academy of Management Proceedings}, number = {1}, doi = {10.5465/AMBPP.2020.15110abstract}, abstract = {Individual-level effects of foreign language use on decision making are often related to shifts between more intuitive/heuristic and more deliberate/rational decision making. Intuitive behavior is substantially influenced by socialization and context. Consistently, meta-studies on the relationships between the use of intuition and specific behaviors in cooperation dilemmas reveal cross-country variation, suggesting that how foreign language use affects decision making might as well be highly dependent on the specific country context. This creates challenges to single-country studies. We, therefore, replicate in Germany a single-country study conducted in the Netherlands. While Germany and the Netherlands are quite similar on general cultural criteria, a recent meta-study on the use of heuristics in cooperation dilemmas suggests important differences regarding default social heuristics. This study thus aims at testing whether the cooperation-reducing effect of using English as a foreign language as found for the Netherlands generalizes across other country/mother tongue settings, which potentially differ considerably in terms of default social heuristics. An empirical comparison between Germany and the Netherlands replicates related effects from different types of experiments and supports the basic mechanism that supposedly underlies foreign language effects-i.e. a tendency towards more reflective decision making, independent of any specific heuristics-, but also suggests significant differences in ultimate outcomes, presumably due to cross-country differences in social heuristics.}, language = {en} }