EP104 Joe Henrich on WEIRD People

Joe Henrich talks to Jim about some of the key insights from his book, The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar & Particularly Prosperous. They cover who the WEIRD people are & what impact their WERDness has on academic research, the impact of literacy on cognition, nature & nurture, the unique characteristics of WEIRD people, individualist vs relational dispositions, guilt vs shame cultures, how events in Middle Ages driven by the Catholic Church lead to WEIRDness, kin-based institutions & cultures, non-kin organizations in societies & their impacts, differing views on justice, individualism's role in innovation & wealth, wholistic vs analytical thinking, moral universalism, free will, possible WEIRD genetic drivers, and more.