The WEIRDest people in the world : How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous

A bold, epic account of how the co-evolution of psychology and culture created the peculiar Western mind that has profoundly shaped the modern world.

Perhaps you are WEIRD : raised in a society that is Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. If so, you’re rather psychologically peculiar.

Unlike much of the world today, and most people who have ever lived, WEIRD people are highly individualistic, self-obsessed, control-oriented, nonconformist, and analytical. They focus on themselves – their attributes, accomplishments, and aspirations – over their relationships and social roles. How did WEIRD populations become so psychologically distinct ? What role did these psychological differences play in the industrial revolution and the global expansion of Europe over the past few centuries ?

In The WEIRDest People in the World, Joseph Henrich tackles these questions and others by weving together cutting-edge research in anthropology, psychology, economics, and evolutionary biology. After exploring the origins and evolution of family structures, marriage, and religion, Henrich show how these institutions shape people’s biology and hormones – how they think, feel and perceive the world. Then, tracking the origins of monogamous nuclear families back into Late Antiquity, Henrch reveals how the Roman Catholic Church unintentionally shifted people’s psychology, and the of Western civilization, by transforming the most fundamental of human institutions : those related to marriage and kinship. It was these social and psychological changes in Europe that eventually catalyzed and coevolved with expanding impersonal markets, rising occupational specialization, and growing competition among voluntary associations- laying the foundation for the modern world.

Provocative and engaging in its vast scope and its surprising details, The WEIRDest People in the World explores how culture, institutions, and psychology shape one another, and explains what this means for both our most personal sense of who we are as individuals and also the large-scale social, political, and economic forces that drive human history.