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Psychology is the study of
human behavior and the mind,
so it’s easy to imagine that researchers
are trying to learn universal truths.
But humans come in a lot of different flavors.
So we can’t make sweeping predictions about
all of humanity based on the limited populations
that are usually used in psychology research.
In fact, many subjects may actually be psychological
outliers, so we should be careful about jumping
to conclusions about what makes humans tick.
See, most research subjects in behavioral
sciences, which include psychology, economics,
and cognitive science, belong to what’s
called the WEIRD population.
Coined by researchers in 2010,
WEIRD is an acronym
that stands for Western, educated,
industrialized, rich, and democratic.
These subgroups are more likely to have the
resources and educational systems to support
academic research, but it means that the studies
that they publish can be really skewed.
For example, in 2008, a study of more than
4,000 articles published over 20 years
found that around 95% of
behavioral science research subjects
come from the U.S., Europe, and
English-speaking countries like Australia.
But these countries only make up about 12%
of the world’s population!
The same analysis found that 68% of subjects
are from the United States, and more than
two-thirds of American psychology research
subjects are undergraduate students.
So another review in 2010 looked at dozens
of studies in the behavioral sciences and
concluded something that seems kind of…
obvious.
But it’s worth saying: American college
students aren’t representative of all humans.
They’re actually a pretty unusual subgroup.
So they were given the acronym WEIRD.
Like, take the W in WEIRD.
As one example, research has found that Western
subjects tend to report having higher self-esteem
than many non-Western subjects.
Some scientists have pointed out that this
might just reflect how different cultures
value things like modesty.
This could affect how people describe themselves
but not how they actually feel.
And even within the same country or region,
people aren’t the same.
Just looking at a “typical” American psychology
subject, an undergrad student,
compared to most Americans reveals some differences
in self-perception, ethics,
and economic decision making.
For instance, researchers compared a bunch
of studies on the Ultimatum Game, which is
a financial sharing and decision-making task
that was designed for psychology
and economics experiments.
Specifically, they were looking at the “E”
in the WEIRD acronym, to understand how people
in college made money decisions in this game,
and whether those results
could be generalized to all people.
And they found that undergrads are more likely
to offer less money to another person compared
to American adults who aren’t currently,
and may have never been, college students.
So even just within the U.S. economy, it’s
important to recognize that the typical research
subject’s behavior doesn’t really tell
you how the typical person manages money.
And education is just part of society.
Society-wide traits like industrialization,
which is basically a shift from growing food
to making goods, has some pretty dramatic
effects on psychology, too.
For example, a number of studies have found
that people who speak English and other Indo-European
languages tend to use words meaning “left”
or “right” to describe where things are.
In other words, we use egocentric terms, and
view objects relative to where we are.
But it turns out that’s a pretty unusual
way to think of things.
People in smaller-scale societies tend to
speak languages that favor allocentric terms,
like “behind” or “above,” or even
cardinal directions like “north” or “south.”
This anchors objects in relation to other
things or the environment.
This is important when it comes
to behavioral research,
because it suggests that this way of thinking is cultural.
It’s a result of the language we speak and
the environment we grew up in.
And all this doesn’t even begin to cover
differences in wealth or political structure, either.
But the point is: researching outside of the
WEIRD bubble is really important because it
lets psychologists puzzle out things that
do seem to be universally human.
Like, most people seem to recognize the same
facial expressions meaning specific emotions,
like anger and happiness.
And we’re pretty sure that most people perceive
the same colors, even though the amount of
names for colors might vary between languages.
Now, this isn’t to say that WEIRD studies,
and all the psychology research
done so far, isn’t valuable.
It is!
It’s just important to recognize its limitations.
And if we want to learn the most we can about humans,
we need to study more different kinds of humans.
Because, again, different flavors.
Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow
Psych!
If you want to dive into another example of
how our brains might be influenced by our cultures,
check out our video about an optical
illusion that doesn’t work for everyone.
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