Cross-cultural styles of thinking and their influence on consumer behavior

• Researchers find that culture does not have a pervasive effect on consumer behavior.
• Situational variables dictate when cultural differences will emerge.
• Situations that foster or inhibit a focus on context can alter culture's influence.

There has been a lot of interest in culture as a driver of consumer behavior. This article focuses on styles of thinking (analytic versus holistic) stemming from cultures with different social organizations. Early research in this area focused on broad cultural differences in consumer behavior. More recently, researchers have recognized that culture does not have a pervasive effect on consumer behavior. Rather, a variety of situational variables dictate when cultural differences due to styles of thinking will emerge. The authors examine the effect of analytic and holistic thinking across a range of consumer-related phenomena: brand extensions, brand knowledge structures, price–quality relationships, spatial biases, and context effects.