Joseph Henrich's 2020 argument that WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) people are psychological outliers in the history of humanity — and that the Catholic Church's medieval marriage policies created the nuclear family that produced WEIRD psychology.
Demonstrates that Western psychology's assumptions about human universals are wrong — WEIRD people are unusual in their individualism, analytical thinking, and trust of strangers; Henrich's account of how the Church's kinship prohibitions created this psychology is a major thesis in cultural evolution.
Discussing
Ask anything about The Weirdest People in the World — their ideas, influences, contradictions, legacy.
Sign in to start a conversation.