What is to be learned from cross-cultural research?
The cross-cultural method has a long history. It originated in the 19th century when ethnographers took to the field to “discover” the fundamental and universal core of humans and society. These ethnographies, along with the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF), are readily available in most libraries. What researchers found is that cultures are organized around systems of common meanings that members use to direct behaviors and organize social relations. A key finding is that despite a remarkable diversity, broad-based cultural universals do exist, and therefore, the cross-cultural method has proven to be useful in making generalizations about human cognitions, personality, culture, and society. But it has failed to uncover an anchor of underlying pan-human traits.
Today, these populations speak only in the “ethnographic present.” Hunter-gatherer societies, who monopolized 95% of human history, are extinct. Most horticultural societies are also extinct or hardly recognizable from their past history, as they have had to adapt to a 21st-century industrialized world. The cross-cultural method is still valuable, of course, but no matter what samples of societies are used, claims about pan-human psychology and social behavior are not easily made from the data. We still confront the problems of earlier researchers: How do we distinguish the simplest, oldest, and most exotic traits from the most common traits? For, once humans abandoned the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, institutional arrangements and secondary adaptations were set into motion and passed down from generation to generation, including symbolic traditions unique to a population. Hence, even if we believe that a substratum of evolved human proclivities exists, they are always at the mercy of culture and social forces that can repress them, channel them towards more normative behaviors, or, in some societies, allow them to be expressed. How, then, do we identify an evolutionary-derived trait from a socio-cultural trait? Hence, on what empirical grounds can the authors claim that WEIRD people are not in tune with their evolved nature? What yardstick justifies such a claim? In the future, would it really be a surprise that as populations around the globe slowly industrialize and set up democratic institutions, they too may come to resemble WEIRD populations? Who, then, should we nominate as unrepresentative of our species? The authors' call for new research designs for uncovering evolved traits, however, is much more promising.
A call for new research programs
Do human proclivities exist that characterize our species? Rather than falling into assumptions about human nature, we do need new research designs that include an evolutionary perspective, cross-species research, and a true interdisciplinary approach. In particular, I think we need to start by searching our evolutionary past for clues. Let me illustrate with two basic questions on human biology and human sociality: (1) How much genetic variability exists in the human genome; and (2) are humans naturally social?
Low genetic diversity
Recent findings reveal that the human genome has less genetic diversity than the chimpanzee (Pan), our closest living relative (Bakewell et al. Reference Bakewell, Shi and Zhang2007; Gagneux & Varki Reference Gagneux and Varki2001; Kaessmann & Paabo, Reference Kaessmann and Paabo2002: Kaessmann et al. Reference Kaessmann, Wiebe and Paabo1999). This surprisingly low level of genetic variability suggests that humans today are all descendants of a small “mother” deme that may have numbered only in the hundreds (Long & Kittles Reference Long and Kittles2003; Relethford Reference Relethford2002). If so, despite great human cultural variation, a high probability exists for a bedrock of evolved traits. In addition, the fossil record tells us that anatomically modern humans evolved about 150 thousand years ago (Garrigan & Hammer Reference Garrigan and Hammer2006; Smith et al. Reference Smith, Tafforeau, Reid, Grun, Eggins, Boutakiout and Hublin2007). This means that hunter-gatherer populations were around for at least 140,000 years before horticultural farmers. As data on studied hunter-gatherers clearly demonstrate, they share a remarkable number of institutional arrangements with traits that include high individualism, reciprocity, and low levels of inequality; and their well-preserved ethnographies are surely a more fruitful resource for clues into our evolved nature.
How naturally social are humans?
Humans are evolved apes. This fact has important implications for how we might go about studying our biologically based propensities and social arrangements. One way to gain insights into the distant past is to use cladistic analysis, social network analysis, and evolutionary theory. One intriguing finding is that monkeys (which make up 70% of all primates) are high-density collectivists, whereas great apes are low-density and low-sociality individualists, with needs for autonomy and mobility. Witness the orangutan, which is nearly solitary. Thus, one starting point for clues into our evolved nature is to study our primate relatives along with past hunter-gatherer societies. These data suggest that the high-sociality, collectivist touchstone we have used to characterize Homo sapiens may be misguided. And oddly enough, since the days of hunter-gathering, the society that best fits this view of human nature – at least in terms of placing a high value on individualism, mobility in space, relative autonomy, verification of self, sexual equality, and freedom of choice – are WEIRD populations. For, despite all the multiple ills of industrialized societies, WEIRD societies may be more compatible with our human nature than the high-density kinship constraints of horticultural societies or the “peasant” constraints of agrarian societies with their privileged few (for data on this argument, see Maryanski & Turner Reference Maryanski and Turner1992; Turner & Maryanski Reference Turner and Maryanski2005; Reference Turner and Maryanski2008).
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While Henrich et al. exaggerate the extent to which undergraduates are used to generalize about pan-human traits (as many social scientists still refuse to subscribe to the premise that a human nature exists), it is true that such generalizations are often implicit in research findings. I also endorse the authors' call for more cross-species research and new research designs. But I strongly disagree with the claim that WEIRD populations skew the traits that characterize Homo sapiens. Henrich et al. also overstate the value of the cross-cultural method for uncovering the evolutionary foundations of human cognition and social behavior. Let me highlight some of these limitations.
What is to be learned from cross-cultural research?
The cross-cultural method has a long history. It originated in the 19th century when ethnographers took to the field to “discover” the fundamental and universal core of humans and society. These ethnographies, along with the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF), are readily available in most libraries. What researchers found is that cultures are organized around systems of common meanings that members use to direct behaviors and organize social relations. A key finding is that despite a remarkable diversity, broad-based cultural universals do exist, and therefore, the cross-cultural method has proven to be useful in making generalizations about human cognitions, personality, culture, and society. But it has failed to uncover an anchor of underlying pan-human traits.
Today, these populations speak only in the “ethnographic present.” Hunter-gatherer societies, who monopolized 95% of human history, are extinct. Most horticultural societies are also extinct or hardly recognizable from their past history, as they have had to adapt to a 21st-century industrialized world. The cross-cultural method is still valuable, of course, but no matter what samples of societies are used, claims about pan-human psychology and social behavior are not easily made from the data. We still confront the problems of earlier researchers: How do we distinguish the simplest, oldest, and most exotic traits from the most common traits? For, once humans abandoned the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, institutional arrangements and secondary adaptations were set into motion and passed down from generation to generation, including symbolic traditions unique to a population. Hence, even if we believe that a substratum of evolved human proclivities exists, they are always at the mercy of culture and social forces that can repress them, channel them towards more normative behaviors, or, in some societies, allow them to be expressed. How, then, do we identify an evolutionary-derived trait from a socio-cultural trait? Hence, on what empirical grounds can the authors claim that WEIRD people are not in tune with their evolved nature? What yardstick justifies such a claim? In the future, would it really be a surprise that as populations around the globe slowly industrialize and set up democratic institutions, they too may come to resemble WEIRD populations? Who, then, should we nominate as unrepresentative of our species? The authors' call for new research designs for uncovering evolved traits, however, is much more promising.
A call for new research programs
Do human proclivities exist that characterize our species? Rather than falling into assumptions about human nature, we do need new research designs that include an evolutionary perspective, cross-species research, and a true interdisciplinary approach. In particular, I think we need to start by searching our evolutionary past for clues. Let me illustrate with two basic questions on human biology and human sociality: (1) How much genetic variability exists in the human genome; and (2) are humans naturally social?
Low genetic diversity
Recent findings reveal that the human genome has less genetic diversity than the chimpanzee (Pan), our closest living relative (Bakewell et al. Reference Bakewell, Shi and Zhang2007; Gagneux & Varki Reference Gagneux and Varki2001; Kaessmann & Paabo, Reference Kaessmann and Paabo2002: Kaessmann et al. Reference Kaessmann, Wiebe and Paabo1999). This surprisingly low level of genetic variability suggests that humans today are all descendants of a small “mother” deme that may have numbered only in the hundreds (Long & Kittles Reference Long and Kittles2003; Relethford Reference Relethford2002). If so, despite great human cultural variation, a high probability exists for a bedrock of evolved traits. In addition, the fossil record tells us that anatomically modern humans evolved about 150 thousand years ago (Garrigan & Hammer Reference Garrigan and Hammer2006; Smith et al. Reference Smith, Tafforeau, Reid, Grun, Eggins, Boutakiout and Hublin2007). This means that hunter-gatherer populations were around for at least 140,000 years before horticultural farmers. As data on studied hunter-gatherers clearly demonstrate, they share a remarkable number of institutional arrangements with traits that include high individualism, reciprocity, and low levels of inequality; and their well-preserved ethnographies are surely a more fruitful resource for clues into our evolved nature.
How naturally social are humans?
Humans are evolved apes. This fact has important implications for how we might go about studying our biologically based propensities and social arrangements. One way to gain insights into the distant past is to use cladistic analysis, social network analysis, and evolutionary theory. One intriguing finding is that monkeys (which make up 70% of all primates) are high-density collectivists, whereas great apes are low-density and low-sociality individualists, with needs for autonomy and mobility. Witness the orangutan, which is nearly solitary. Thus, one starting point for clues into our evolved nature is to study our primate relatives along with past hunter-gatherer societies. These data suggest that the high-sociality, collectivist touchstone we have used to characterize Homo sapiens may be misguided. And oddly enough, since the days of hunter-gathering, the society that best fits this view of human nature – at least in terms of placing a high value on individualism, mobility in space, relative autonomy, verification of self, sexual equality, and freedom of choice – are WEIRD populations. For, despite all the multiple ills of industrialized societies, WEIRD societies may be more compatible with our human nature than the high-density kinship constraints of horticultural societies or the “peasant” constraints of agrarian societies with their privileged few (for data on this argument, see Maryanski & Turner Reference Maryanski and Turner1992; Turner & Maryanski Reference Turner and Maryanski2005; Reference Turner and Maryanski2008).