An education, again via Jonathan Haidt. Fascinating research paper recommended by him on his Edge talk - The Weirdest People in the World: How representative are experimental findings from American university students? What do we really know about human psychology?
This paper is a wake up call for social sciences, psychology researchers etc but it will also help us evaluate our innate "allegory of the cave", limitations of our understanding of this very diverse world and that infinite possible moral matrix's. (by the way, WEIRD is acronym for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies). For the record, having lived in both east and west has helped me being open minded but not even close to the prerequisites (for?), given the diversity (paradoxically, I am stuck in sparsely populated moral matrix - not a special matrix but just one of many). Here are few excerpts from the paper:
Romantic Love as a Basis of Marriage
While feelings of romantic love appear to be universally experienced, romantic love as the basis of a marriage is not universally recognized. Marriages are less likely to be based on romantic love (i.e., they are arranged by other family members) in “collectivistic” societies where extended family ties are stronger; in the absence of family and social pressures, romantic love apparently becomes more important to hold the relationship together. In one international survey of students from India, Pakistan, Thailand, the U.S., England, Japan, Philippines, Mexico, Brazil, Hong Kong, Australia, the vast majority of university students from Western countries (as well as Hong Kong) said that they would not marry someone unless they loved them. In contrast, students from most of the non‐Western populations that were studied were more likely to entertain marriage preceding love. Ironically, the greater emphasis on romantic love in marriages among Westerners is paralleled by a higher divorce rate (United Nations Statistics Division, 2004). Marriages which are largely based on romance among Westerners appear to exist in more conditional and tenuous terms than they do in populations where the marriages are not founded on romantic love. Perhaps as a consequence, much research on relationships has attended to the loss of love and its relation to the dissolution of long‐term relationships."
Moral Reasoning
A central concern in the developmental literature has been the way people acquire the cognitive foundations of moral reasoning. The most influential approach to the development of moral reasoning has been Kohlberg’s (1971, 1976, 1981) framework, in which people’s abilities to reason morally are seen to hinge on cognitive abilities that develop over maturation. Kohlberg proposed that people progressed through the same three levels: 1) children start out at a pre‐conventional level, viewing right and wrong as based on the physical or hedonistic consequences of actions; 2) then they progress to a conventional level, where moral behavior is perceived to be that which maintains the social order of their group; and finally 3) some progress further to a post‐conventional level, evaluating right and wrong on the basis of abstract ethical principles regarding justice and individual rights—the moral code inherent in the U.S. Constitution.While all of Kohlberg’s levels are commonly found in WEIRD populations, much subsequent research has revealed scant evidence for post‐conventional moral reasoning in other populations. One meta‐analysis carried out with data from 27 countries found consistent evidence for post‐conventional moral reasoning in all the Western urbanized samples, yet found no evidence for this type of reasoning in small‐scale societies (Snarey 1985). Furthermore, it is not just that formal education is necessary to achieve Kohlberg’s post‐conventional level. Some highly educated non‐Western populations do not show this post‐conventional reasoning. At Kuwait University, for example, faculty members score lower on Kohlberg’s schemes than the typical norms for Western adults, and the elder faculty there scored no higher than the younger ones, contrary to Western patterns.
Research in moral psychology also indicates that non‐Western adults and Western religious conservatives rely on a wider range of moral principles than a morality of justice. Shweder, Much, Mahapatra, and Park (1997) proposed that in addition to a dominant justice‐based morality, which they termed an ethic of autonomy, there are two other ethics that are commonly found outside the West: an ethic of communion, in which morality derives from the fulfillment of interpersonal obligations, and an ethic of divinity in which moral decisions are based on the fit with a perceived natural order. In sum, the high‐SES, secular Western populations that have been the primary target of study thus far appear unusual in a global context, based on their peculiar reliance on a single foundation for moral reasoning (based on justice and individual rights).Compared with Westerners, non‐Westerners may 1) view enemies as an important aspect of relationships, 2) prefer lower to higher arousal positive affective states, 3) be less egocentric in their perspective‐taking, 4) have weaker motivations for consistency, 5) be less prone to social loafing, (6) associate fewer benefits with a person’s physical attractiveness,and (7) have more pronounced avoidance motivations.
From the difference between contemporary and previous generation Americans, we can draw some parallels on my qualms about charter cities (a.k.a love of slums). If Americans changed so much in the last 50 years (I suppose neural plasticity being one the major factors), charter cities will change who we are. Only question is will it be better or worse? We cannot get a precise answer for this but we can get some insights by conducting some comprehensive studies on existing slum dwellers.
Contemporary Americans compared with Previous Generations of Americans
Contemporary Americans may also be psychologically unusual compared to their forebears 50 or 100 years ago. Some documented changes among Americans over the past few decades include increasing individualism, as indicated by an increasingly solitary lifestyle dominated by individual‐centered activities and a decrease in group‐participation, and a lower need for social approval. Again, these findings suggest that the unusual nature of Americans in these domains, as we reviewed earlier, may be a relatively recent phenomenon. These findings raise doubts as to whether research on contemporary American students (and WEIRD people more generally) is even extendable to American students of previous decades.
The evidence of temporal change is probably best for IQ . Research by Flynn shows that IQ scores increased over the last half century by 18 points in all industrialized nations for which there were adequate data. Moreover, this rise was driven primarily by increasing scores on the analytic subtests. This is a striking finding considering recent work showing how unusual Westerners are in their analytic reasoning styles. Given such findings, it seems plausible that Americans of only 50 or 100 years ago were reasoning in ways much more similar to the rest of the non‐Western world than Americans of today.
Romantic Love as a Basis of Marriage
While feelings of romantic love appear to be universally experienced, romantic love as the basis of a marriage is not universally recognized. Marriages are less likely to be based on romantic love (i.e., they are arranged by other family members) in “collectivistic” societies where extended family ties are stronger; in the absence of family and social pressures, romantic love apparently becomes more important to hold the relationship together. In one international survey of students from India, Pakistan, Thailand, the U.S., England, Japan, Philippines, Mexico, Brazil, Hong Kong, Australia, the vast majority of university students from Western countries (as well as Hong Kong) said that they would not marry someone unless they loved them. In contrast, students from most of the non‐Western populations that were studied were more likely to entertain marriage preceding love. Ironically, the greater emphasis on romantic love in marriages among Westerners is paralleled by a higher divorce rate (United Nations Statistics Division, 2004). Marriages which are largely based on romance among Westerners appear to exist in more conditional and tenuous terms than they do in populations where the marriages are not founded on romantic love. Perhaps as a consequence, much research on relationships has attended to the loss of love and its relation to the dissolution of long‐term relationships."
Moral Reasoning
A central concern in the developmental literature has been the way people acquire the cognitive foundations of moral reasoning. The most influential approach to the development of moral reasoning has been Kohlberg’s (1971, 1976, 1981) framework, in which people’s abilities to reason morally are seen to hinge on cognitive abilities that develop over maturation. Kohlberg proposed that people progressed through the same three levels: 1) children start out at a pre‐conventional level, viewing right and wrong as based on the physical or hedonistic consequences of actions; 2) then they progress to a conventional level, where moral behavior is perceived to be that which maintains the social order of their group; and finally 3) some progress further to a post‐conventional level, evaluating right and wrong on the basis of abstract ethical principles regarding justice and individual rights—the moral code inherent in the U.S. Constitution.While all of Kohlberg’s levels are commonly found in WEIRD populations, much subsequent research has revealed scant evidence for post‐conventional moral reasoning in other populations. One meta‐analysis carried out with data from 27 countries found consistent evidence for post‐conventional moral reasoning in all the Western urbanized samples, yet found no evidence for this type of reasoning in small‐scale societies (Snarey 1985). Furthermore, it is not just that formal education is necessary to achieve Kohlberg’s post‐conventional level. Some highly educated non‐Western populations do not show this post‐conventional reasoning. At Kuwait University, for example, faculty members score lower on Kohlberg’s schemes than the typical norms for Western adults, and the elder faculty there scored no higher than the younger ones, contrary to Western patterns.
Research in moral psychology also indicates that non‐Western adults and Western religious conservatives rely on a wider range of moral principles than a morality of justice. Shweder, Much, Mahapatra, and Park (1997) proposed that in addition to a dominant justice‐based morality, which they termed an ethic of autonomy, there are two other ethics that are commonly found outside the West: an ethic of communion, in which morality derives from the fulfillment of interpersonal obligations, and an ethic of divinity in which moral decisions are based on the fit with a perceived natural order. In sum, the high‐SES, secular Western populations that have been the primary target of study thus far appear unusual in a global context, based on their peculiar reliance on a single foundation for moral reasoning (based on justice and individual rights).Compared with Westerners, non‐Westerners may 1) view enemies as an important aspect of relationships, 2) prefer lower to higher arousal positive affective states, 3) be less egocentric in their perspective‐taking, 4) have weaker motivations for consistency, 5) be less prone to social loafing, (6) associate fewer benefits with a person’s physical attractiveness,and (7) have more pronounced avoidance motivations.
From the difference between contemporary and previous generation Americans, we can draw some parallels on my qualms about charter cities (a.k.a love of slums). If Americans changed so much in the last 50 years (I suppose neural plasticity being one the major factors), charter cities will change who we are. Only question is will it be better or worse? We cannot get a precise answer for this but we can get some insights by conducting some comprehensive studies on existing slum dwellers.
Contemporary Americans compared with Previous Generations of Americans
Contemporary Americans may also be psychologically unusual compared to their forebears 50 or 100 years ago. Some documented changes among Americans over the past few decades include increasing individualism, as indicated by an increasingly solitary lifestyle dominated by individual‐centered activities and a decrease in group‐participation, and a lower need for social approval. Again, these findings suggest that the unusual nature of Americans in these domains, as we reviewed earlier, may be a relatively recent phenomenon. These findings raise doubts as to whether research on contemporary American students (and WEIRD people more generally) is even extendable to American students of previous decades.
The evidence of temporal change is probably best for IQ . Research by Flynn shows that IQ scores increased over the last half century by 18 points in all industrialized nations for which there were adequate data. Moreover, this rise was driven primarily by increasing scores on the analytic subtests. This is a striking finding considering recent work showing how unusual Westerners are in their analytic reasoning styles. Given such findings, it seems plausible that Americans of only 50 or 100 years ago were reasoning in ways much more similar to the rest of the non‐Western world than Americans of today.
Research Topics have been Limited by the Heavy Reliance on WEIRD Populations.
Bottomline
Relying on WEIRD populations may cause researchers to miss important dimensions of variation, and devote undue attention to behavioral tendencies that are unusual in a global context. There are good arguments for choosing topics that are of primary interest to the readers of the literature (i.e., largely WEIRD people); however, if the goal of the research program is to shed light on the human condition, then this narrow unrepresentative sample may lead to an uneven and incomplete understanding. We suspect that some topics such as conformity, cognitive dissonance, fairness, and analytic reasoning might not have been sufficiently interesting to justify in‐depth investigation for most humans at most times throughout history. Alternatively, the behavioral sciences have shown a rather limited interest in such topics as family, food, ethnicity (not race), religion, sacred values, sacrifice, and rituals. Had the behavioral sciences developed elsewhere, important theoretical foci and central lines of research would likely look very different.
Bottomline
Relying on WEIRD populations may cause researchers to miss important dimensions of variation, and devote undue attention to behavioral tendencies that are unusual in a global context. There are good arguments for choosing topics that are of primary interest to the readers of the literature (i.e., largely WEIRD people); however, if the goal of the research program is to shed light on the human condition, then this narrow unrepresentative sample may lead to an uneven and incomplete understanding. We suspect that some topics such as conformity, cognitive dissonance, fairness, and analytic reasoning might not have been sufficiently interesting to justify in‐depth investigation for most humans at most times throughout history. Alternatively, the behavioral sciences have shown a rather limited interest in such topics as family, food, ethnicity (not race), religion, sacred values, sacrifice, and rituals. Had the behavioral sciences developed elsewhere, important theoretical foci and central lines of research would likely look very different.
No comments:
Post a Comment