People in most other cultures tested such as China and the Middle East tend to pair mitten and hand because those two things have a relationship with each other. Westerners tend to categorize scarf and mitten because they belong to the same abstract category. In one test, participants have to choose two of three items to categorize together, such as scarf, mitten, and hand.

We studied this using tests that cultural psychologist use to measure cognitive differences. We found that American liberals think even WEIRDer, even more unlike the rest of the world, than the average American conservative. I went to talk with my advisors, Shige Oishi and Jonathan Haidt, and they liked the idea and joined me on the project (along with Xuemin Zhang, Felicity Miao, and Shimin Chen)įive years and thousands of participants later, we just published the findings in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. So if Westerners think WEIRDly, maybe liberals think even WEIRDer. But the vast majority of people around the world more often think intuitively-what psychologists call “holistic thought.”įive years ago, I had just arrived at the University of Virginia, and I had a thought flash: Aren’t most of these WEIRD elements even more true of liberal culture within the United States? Liberalism thrives in universities (Education), cities (Industrialized), the wealthy East and West coasts (Rich), and ultra-pluralistic groups like Occupy Wall Street and Unitarian churches (Democratic). On psychological tests, Westerners tend to view scenes, explain behavior, and categorize objects analytically. People from Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democratic countries are consistent psychological outliers compared to the other 85% of the world’s population. Guest post by Thomas Talhelm (on a recent publication with Haidt, mentioned by Tom Edsall in NYT)Ī few years ago, psychologists looked at all of the psychological studies of people in different cultures and concluded that Westerners are WEIRD. Jan 31 21 Liberals are WEIRDer than Conservatives

Liberas are better educated