The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous

Most psychological studies take place in universities with university students as the subjects. These have been used to generalize human behavior. However, it turns out that they are finding results for a very peculiar group of people that do not really represent the world as a whole. These people are WEIRD -Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic. They are an anomaly in the world today and in the history of humanity.

How did WEIRD society come about? The author discusses a number of reasons. Among them, the Catholic church jumps to the front. Ironically, while the church was at the vanguard of the changes, once the ball got rolling, it moved past the church, leaving the church as the more "conservative" group today. Prior to the influence of the church, ties to family and clan were of primary importance. 

The church marriage and family policy ripped apart these relationships. Marriages would often take place within families, with cousin marriage common. The church clamped down on that, even going to the extent of prohibiting marriage up to sixth cousins. This helped to spread people outside of small family groups. This also helped to encourage people to trust people outside of their family and form guilds and other groups.

Monogamy was also the law of the land. Many cultures have allowed men to take multiple wives. This gave women the advantage of getting their desired mate, regardless of his marital status. However, it left a group of men with no marriage prospects. These people would be willing to take excessive risks, thereby disrupting society. By encouraging monogamy, the church increased the prospects of men and societal stability.

The church helped to create an individualistic society. The protestant reformation kicked this in to high gear. People were responsible for their own well-being. People were not responsible for the actions of others. Their individual mind state is viewed as more important than outcomes. Concepts of "natural rights" were viewed as logical. Documents such as the Magna Carta and Declaration of Independence were rooted in these concepts.

This WEIRD society encouraged more people to work together for the benefit of everybody. An analytical, logical approach was used allowing for widespread technical growth. This helped lead to these cultures dominating others. They represent the root of the common western culture today. This individualistic culture dominates today. There is a quest to adopt more and more new individual rights. This is the logical continuation of this culture. However, this culture remains just a unique culture that is dominating today. It is not necessarily the best or the ultimate. Today, we continue to see conflicts where the individualistic culture attempts to adopt other groups.

The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter

The Secret of Our Success explores the importance of cultural evolution in the success of homo sapiens. The book also explores the ways in which cultural evolution can synergisticly work with genetic evolution.

The social aspect of culture can be compared somewhat to moving work to the cloud. On one side, you can get more and more powerful computers. However, you can also combine many smaller computers together to achieve similar results. Combining the smaller computers also allows for more resiliency and rapid expansion. The culture can provide similar benefits. We don't need to re-learn what foods are safe and how to prepare them. Our culture is built on previous discoveries. Today we have tools and technologies built on top of many levels of previous ones.

This does have some challenges. As isolated societies grow smaller, they can lose cultural knowledge. There are also challenges when certain knowledgeable people are lost. (There is an example of a society that lost its kyak builders.) 

Skin color is an interesting example of cultural and genetic evolution working in tandem. Darker skin is beneficial in warmer, sunnier climates. In more northerly climates, paler skin allows for more vitamin D formation and is beneficial for farming societies. However, Inuit societies are able to obtain the needed vitamins from the animals they consume in the arctic. Thus, the lighter skin is not as beneficial. We see cultural and genetic needs working in tandem.

Norms and goals are important. Societies have different languages, taboos and ways of doing things. They are often adopted based on observance of "models".  Often these norms are based on some need that is now no longer understood. There are often seemingly "odd" behaviors that were built on a social requirement. (For example, food may be prepared in certain ways to provide needed nutrition.) There can also be cultural norms that were merely adopted based on models without any useful requirements. Different languages result in different types of communications. Some also have a sound structure that is optimized for the particular environment.

Cultural evolution became an integral part of human evolution. We have trouble surviving individually without our culture. Even eating is dependent on cultural learning. Our digestive system is not optimized for eating available raw foods. We need cooking and other processing for most of our eating. Genetic evolution has worked in tandem with the cultural evolution to optimize for the beneficial genes and let redundant ones to fade out. We don't need to rely on one individual brain, but can take knowledge from society past and present.