Nicolas Geeraert — How knowledge about different cultures is shaking the foundations of psychology

Clearly, humans are in many ways very similar – we share the same physiology and have the same basic needs, such as nourishment, safety and sexuality. So what effect can culture really have on the fundamental aspects of our psyche, such as perception, cognition and personality? Let’s take a look at the evidence so far.

Experimental psychologists typically study behaviour in a small group of people, with the assumption that this can be generalised to the wider human population. If the population is considered to be homogeneous, then such inferences can indeed be made from a random sample.

However, this isn’t the case. Psychologists have long disproportionately relied on undergraduate students to carry out their studies, simply because they are readily available to researchers at universities. More dramatically still, more than 90% of participants in psychological studies come from countries that are Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic (W.E.I.R.D). Clearly, these countries are neither a random sample nor representative for the human population.

Last evening I was reflecting on how silly this approach is. Not just statistics either. It lies at the foundation of the assumption that Western liberalism is "natural" as well as the assumptions about "natural law" that abound in Western thinking and form the basis for Western values.

In Logic 101, this is called the informal fallacy of hasty generalization. It also involves the moralistic fallacy. In psychology, it is a blend of cognitive biases, e.g., confirmation and anchoring bias.

In other terms, this approach to supposedly fact-based reasoning is fallacious  and persisting in holding incorrect assumptions is irrational.

This is the Achilles hell of liberal internationalism, liberal interventionism, and liberal globalization. Paradoxically, it is also illiberal.

The Conversation
How knowledge about different cultures is shaking the foundations of psychology

Nicolas Geeraert | Senior lecturer, University of Essex

See also

Roger Farmer's Economic Window
Ergodicity
Roger Farmer | Distinguished Professor of Economics at UCLA

See also

Information Transfer Economics
Ergodicity!Jason Smith

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Daniel Little — Expectations and performance

There is a growing accumulation of evidence suggesting that individuals' performance in a wide range of activities is powerfully and insidiously affected by the expectations that are subtly conveyed to them by the people around them. If the people around a child or adult believe the individual will have particular difficulty with an upcoming task, this doubt is conveyed through cues the individual is able to sense. And, through cognitive mechanisms not fully understood, the subject's performance is affected, with results that are lower than otherwise possible.

Understanding Society

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Bryan Caplan — Conspiracy Theory: The Hidden Agenda of the Political Mind

It's a book review, but it's value lies in summarizing how ideology trumps self-interest. Self-interest is too narrow a concept to account for human motivation, choice and action. Narrow utilitarianism is not sustained by evidence.

Does self-interest explain individuals' political views? Surprisingly, political science's standard answer is No. While self-interest occasionally plays a role, it poorly predicts both issue positions and voting behavior.

Unlike most economists, I strongly endorse political scientists' consensus. Their research doesn't just look solid. I've also personally played with the data for over a thousand hours, confirming that their basic approach is correct. When I teach this material, I make my graduate students hunt for counter-examples - exceptional cases where self-interest ishighly predictive of political views. Most return from this quest empty-handed, or nearly so. 

Jason Weedon and Robert Kurzban's new The Hidden Agenda of the Political Mind: How Self-Interest Shapes Our Opinions and Why We Won't Admit It (Princeton University Press, 2014) frontally attack the academic consensus against political self-interest. Since they charmingly paint me as a leading voice in this consensus, it is in my self-interest for their book to be widely-read. Unfortunately, Weedon and Kurzban are basically high-brow conspiracy theorists. They trumpet a strong, incredible thesis, then "interpret" virtually every fact to fit it...

Econlog
Conspiracy Theory: The Hidden Agenda of the Political Mind

Bryan Caplan | Professor of Economics, George Mason University