One of the concepts I still want to do more inquiry into is that of scarcity. As an experience, it certainly is very real. Feeling like "not getting enough" or "not having enough" or "not being enough." And yet, I believe that it is the Western mind's linkage of this experience with "something good" (how many conservative economists might define economy as related to the study of dealing with scarce resources) that both has created a lot of wealth (conscious care for scarce resources) and a lot of trouble (forgetting about resources we cannot commoditize, like family, friendships, and relationships in general).
Our civilizational history as WEIRD people has given us an incredible tool for making the most of very little (resources), but it also has created a particular blind spot, which can be easily exploited by those who have understood enough of reverse engineered human psychology to appreciate that fear of other people *CAN* be commodified.
Social media algorithms are doing exactly that, and unless we have something like strong interpersonal bonds and trust in others to set against that commodification of our fears, I think we will come to a place in history where our blind spot eats us alive...
Is anyone getting increasingly suspicious of drawing conclusions from social experiments like exchanging lighters? Connecting a willingness to exchange lighters to the "endowment effect"... I don't know. I just don't see how you get there. There are way too many other explanations. Maybe the WEIRD are more suspicious: "why do you want to trade lighters? They're exactly the same. Something must be better about the one I have." Maybe non-WEIRD are more deferential to authority. "You're a scientist and and you want to swap lighters, so let's swap lighters." Maybe non-WEIRD are more friendly or more eager to please. "You seem like a nice enough guy and the lighters are the same, so sure." This just stinks of overfitting. If that's the right term.
Why are we so dependent on experimental stand-ins when these traits could be reasonably observed? I used to work with a guy from Nigeria who told me once that he could never have opened up a convenience store in his hometown. Everyone from his extended family would have been super proud of him, but also would have assumed that they could have taken anything out of the store for free. It just wouldn't have occurred to them to pay, the same way it wouldn't occur to you to pay for a drink when visiting a friend. Because of that his store would have been out of business in no time.
It seems like THAT, if true, tells you something about differences in culture. Running these strange experiments far removed from everyday life doesn't feel like that.
This is quite interesting but also linking this to religion sounds weird to me. There are cultures that are non-WEIRD but devoted to the Christian god. For example, the Philippines. Also, the USA is not a 2'000 years old country, they were mostly a Spaniards colony just like the Philippines became in the 16th century.
Also what's the explanation of the differences within Europe, for example Italy, literally the bedrock of Roman catholicism, vs Nordic countries?
Marriage? Sumerians were already celebrating it, as well as Indians and other non-WEIRD cultures. India is also a particularly religious culture, but not WEIRD?
Monogamy has been increasingly more prevalent since 10k to 5k BC. No Christianity involved here.
Will have to read the book but so far I'm not convinced by this argument. Instinctively, I'd say farming, harsh winters, and sedentarisation had more effect on the forging of WEIRD countries.
WEIRD is the neutral term for "whiteness" as I see it, and it is the ocean all modern westerners swim in - whether we see ourselves as the resistance or not.
The book goes to great length to justify and quantify something not intuitive, namely that European Christianity, particularly Protestantism with its focus on the individual relationship with God, without knowledge or intention, dissolved clan relationships in a way that other religious practices around the world have not done. And it shows that even within Europe, there are differences, and why.
The ingredients of the cocktail that propelled the advance of the western world surely is worth contemplation, and this is one of the most compelling contributions I have read.
The part about societies being held together by dynamics not seen at the time - or even in retrospect if they don't fall cleanly into slots in critical minds - is sobering, as Rob points out. This highlights the importance of not seeing social critique solely as an exercise in negativity bias.
“Henrich describes how it was in fact the social bonding resulting from the activity, rather than pleasing their gods, that resulted in improved cohesion.”
Perhaps their gods knew that the rituals would give rise to social bonding, and so improve social cohesion.
The trust part of a high trust society is hugely important, easily broken, and difficult to repair.
Promiscuity reduces trust, if not killing it. Children being born & raised without married parents is an important problem, and the biggest for those kids whose parents are sluts & slut-jerks. Yet almost all consensual sex outside of marriage leads to feelings of betrayal, and distrust.
I speculate that sexually active college girls who don’t get married often have trouble trusting guys, who then treat later women worse, while those young women with less trust in men give more trust to government. & vote Dem.
Sex avoidance by more young folk is partly due to avoiding the expected betrayal/ letdown of casual sex. Sex habits dominate evolution.
Fascinating, thank you. I am still intrigued as to why the Church in the early Middle Ages thought to promote strict marriage laws. I assume no one thought this one out and set down a rule, rather in a time in a Game of Thrones World, it sort of worked in the Church's interests.
This review is so good, it made its way into my subconscient; the conclusion especially makes me very curious to read the book. It explains even little things I have personally noticed, such as the way kids and parents in France tend to live near each other in adulthood but much less so in the U.S (Europe still has strong remains of its kin based society, they show up in surprising ways). - It would be interesting to see how it affects the way individuals in kin based and WEIRD societies experience feelings of belonging.- I am however skeptical that it can all be traced back to Christianity, for example, in small very Christian parts of Italy there is still a strong kin system that is reflected by people's behaviors as described in this review.
I see what you are saying. The main thesis, and the main theoretical contribution concerns exposure to Christianity in general. On the other hand, as stated on p.418, Protestantism "acts like a booster shot for many of the WEIRD psychological patterns.." , and that notion is then developed further from there on.
Amazingly good article! This book referenced in the article does not look at the huge implications that the propaganda perfected by Edward Bernays had on the western countries. That made the individual to act based on mediated impulses and manipulated the masses. To make things more complicated this new type of thinking came on a tangent with the Socialist ideas and ideals which are continually growing from 1848 on. The Chinese experiment has led to the forceful dissolution of the kin relations in the favor to the abusive Collectivism. The Union of the Soviets was not far from that too. However, the mission was accomplished with severe losses of many innocent lives but, due to coercive-punitive measures based on crude lies, has led to the lack of trust between individuals. The individual had to develop two pathological personalities, one for the society, being fearful of shaming, and one for the self to maintain some level of personal sanity. On the other hand, the individual is invited to succeed as long as he will serve the system and the group. This hybridization of the WEIRD and non-WEIRD concepts are nowadays more and more prevalent in the Western countries and are being promoted at the global level.
For most of the time, it seemed to me like the cultures across the globe are divided into either individualist/progressive/secular or collective/traditional/religious. I never thought about how the Western Church was the driving force behind the individualism.
Maybe one reason for that is that WEIRD as described here (with Western Church supporting the nuclear family) seems to be a thing of the past. The formerly WEIRD cultures are now post-WEIRD -hyper-individualistic, with no support for religion, family and monogamy.
Understanding this might be crucial to solving the fertility crisis. Until the end of the 20th century, both WEIRD and kin-based cultures supported fertility. The idea to become more like the currently still fertile kin-based cultures is sometimes proposed as a solution for the post-WEIRD cultures, but given the above, it seems like going back from post-WEIRD to original WEIRD is a way better idea that's not discussed enough.
Do you have data on how fast and to what degree do immigrants from non- WEIRD societies to WEIRD societies adopt WEIRD ways?
Similarly, is it factually true that immigrants from less- WEIRD societies to more-WEIRD societies are WEIRDer than average in their initial home society?
One of the concepts I still want to do more inquiry into is that of scarcity. As an experience, it certainly is very real. Feeling like "not getting enough" or "not having enough" or "not being enough." And yet, I believe that it is the Western mind's linkage of this experience with "something good" (how many conservative economists might define economy as related to the study of dealing with scarce resources) that both has created a lot of wealth (conscious care for scarce resources) and a lot of trouble (forgetting about resources we cannot commoditize, like family, friendships, and relationships in general).
Our civilizational history as WEIRD people has given us an incredible tool for making the most of very little (resources), but it also has created a particular blind spot, which can be easily exploited by those who have understood enough of reverse engineered human psychology to appreciate that fear of other people *CAN* be commodified.
Social media algorithms are doing exactly that, and unless we have something like strong interpersonal bonds and trust in others to set against that commodification of our fears, I think we will come to a place in history where our blind spot eats us alive...
Great review. Thanks Rob.
Is anyone getting increasingly suspicious of drawing conclusions from social experiments like exchanging lighters? Connecting a willingness to exchange lighters to the "endowment effect"... I don't know. I just don't see how you get there. There are way too many other explanations. Maybe the WEIRD are more suspicious: "why do you want to trade lighters? They're exactly the same. Something must be better about the one I have." Maybe non-WEIRD are more deferential to authority. "You're a scientist and and you want to swap lighters, so let's swap lighters." Maybe non-WEIRD are more friendly or more eager to please. "You seem like a nice enough guy and the lighters are the same, so sure." This just stinks of overfitting. If that's the right term.
Why are we so dependent on experimental stand-ins when these traits could be reasonably observed? I used to work with a guy from Nigeria who told me once that he could never have opened up a convenience store in his hometown. Everyone from his extended family would have been super proud of him, but also would have assumed that they could have taken anything out of the store for free. It just wouldn't have occurred to them to pay, the same way it wouldn't occur to you to pay for a drink when visiting a friend. Because of that his store would have been out of business in no time.
It seems like THAT, if true, tells you something about differences in culture. Running these strange experiments far removed from everyday life doesn't feel like that.
This is quite interesting but also linking this to religion sounds weird to me. There are cultures that are non-WEIRD but devoted to the Christian god. For example, the Philippines. Also, the USA is not a 2'000 years old country, they were mostly a Spaniards colony just like the Philippines became in the 16th century.
Also what's the explanation of the differences within Europe, for example Italy, literally the bedrock of Roman catholicism, vs Nordic countries?
Marriage? Sumerians were already celebrating it, as well as Indians and other non-WEIRD cultures. India is also a particularly religious culture, but not WEIRD?
Monogamy has been increasingly more prevalent since 10k to 5k BC. No Christianity involved here.
Will have to read the book but so far I'm not convinced by this argument. Instinctively, I'd say farming, harsh winters, and sedentarisation had more effect on the forging of WEIRD countries.
WEIRD is the neutral term for "whiteness" as I see it, and it is the ocean all modern westerners swim in - whether we see ourselves as the resistance or not.
The book goes to great length to justify and quantify something not intuitive, namely that European Christianity, particularly Protestantism with its focus on the individual relationship with God, without knowledge or intention, dissolved clan relationships in a way that other religious practices around the world have not done. And it shows that even within Europe, there are differences, and why.
The ingredients of the cocktail that propelled the advance of the western world surely is worth contemplation, and this is one of the most compelling contributions I have read.
The part about societies being held together by dynamics not seen at the time - or even in retrospect if they don't fall cleanly into slots in critical minds - is sobering, as Rob points out. This highlights the importance of not seeing social critique solely as an exercise in negativity bias.
So interesting! I was unaware of this research. Sometimes I feel like a fish introduced to water.
You are a good writer.
“Henrich describes how it was in fact the social bonding resulting from the activity, rather than pleasing their gods, that resulted in improved cohesion.”
Perhaps their gods knew that the rituals would give rise to social bonding, and so improve social cohesion.
The trust part of a high trust society is hugely important, easily broken, and difficult to repair.
Promiscuity reduces trust, if not killing it. Children being born & raised without married parents is an important problem, and the biggest for those kids whose parents are sluts & slut-jerks. Yet almost all consensual sex outside of marriage leads to feelings of betrayal, and distrust.
I speculate that sexually active college girls who don’t get married often have trouble trusting guys, who then treat later women worse, while those young women with less trust in men give more trust to government. & vote Dem.
Sex avoidance by more young folk is partly due to avoiding the expected betrayal/ letdown of casual sex. Sex habits dominate evolution.
Fascinating, thank you. I am still intrigued as to why the Church in the early Middle Ages thought to promote strict marriage laws. I assume no one thought this one out and set down a rule, rather in a time in a Game of Thrones World, it sort of worked in the Church's interests.
This review is so good, it made its way into my subconscient; the conclusion especially makes me very curious to read the book. It explains even little things I have personally noticed, such as the way kids and parents in France tend to live near each other in adulthood but much less so in the U.S (Europe still has strong remains of its kin based society, they show up in surprising ways). - It would be interesting to see how it affects the way individuals in kin based and WEIRD societies experience feelings of belonging.- I am however skeptical that it can all be traced back to Christianity, for example, in small very Christian parts of Italy there is still a strong kin system that is reflected by people's behaviors as described in this review.
I see what you are saying. The main thesis, and the main theoretical contribution concerns exposure to Christianity in general. On the other hand, as stated on p.418, Protestantism "acts like a booster shot for many of the WEIRD psychological patterns.." , and that notion is then developed further from there on.
A fitting epitaph on the grave of the West.
Amazingly good article! This book referenced in the article does not look at the huge implications that the propaganda perfected by Edward Bernays had on the western countries. That made the individual to act based on mediated impulses and manipulated the masses. To make things more complicated this new type of thinking came on a tangent with the Socialist ideas and ideals which are continually growing from 1848 on. The Chinese experiment has led to the forceful dissolution of the kin relations in the favor to the abusive Collectivism. The Union of the Soviets was not far from that too. However, the mission was accomplished with severe losses of many innocent lives but, due to coercive-punitive measures based on crude lies, has led to the lack of trust between individuals. The individual had to develop two pathological personalities, one for the society, being fearful of shaming, and one for the self to maintain some level of personal sanity. On the other hand, the individual is invited to succeed as long as he will serve the system and the group. This hybridization of the WEIRD and non-WEIRD concepts are nowadays more and more prevalent in the Western countries and are being promoted at the global level.
For most of the time, it seemed to me like the cultures across the globe are divided into either individualist/progressive/secular or collective/traditional/religious. I never thought about how the Western Church was the driving force behind the individualism.
Maybe one reason for that is that WEIRD as described here (with Western Church supporting the nuclear family) seems to be a thing of the past. The formerly WEIRD cultures are now post-WEIRD -hyper-individualistic, with no support for religion, family and monogamy.
Understanding this might be crucial to solving the fertility crisis. Until the end of the 20th century, both WEIRD and kin-based cultures supported fertility. The idea to become more like the currently still fertile kin-based cultures is sometimes proposed as a solution for the post-WEIRD cultures, but given the above, it seems like going back from post-WEIRD to original WEIRD is a way better idea that's not discussed enough.
Do you have data on how fast and to what degree do immigrants from non- WEIRD societies to WEIRD societies adopt WEIRD ways?
Similarly, is it factually true that immigrants from less- WEIRD societies to more-WEIRD societies are WEIRDer than average in their initial home society?
Fabulous article, thank you!