The Weirdest People in the World? Joseph Henrich Steven J. Heine Ara Norenzayan

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 The Weirdest People in the World? 2010 Behavioral and Brain Sciences 10.1017/S0140525X0999152X henrich2010-weird henrich2010-weird.txt, the project's staged copy 9dec302636d70cc52a9c25d906bf6d33debacbf7 open-access anthropology

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 0 spans located by searching the stored text for the quote's exact words, allowing any whitespace between them Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. review Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. THE GAP BETWEEN A CLAIM'S SCOPE AND ITS EVIDENCE'S SCOPE IS THE PAPER'S FIRST SENTENCE: behavioral scientists ROUTINELY PUBLISH BROAD CLAIMS ABOUT HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR in the world's top journals BASED ON SAMPLES DRAWN ENTIRELY from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies. The claim is about the species; the evidence is about one corner of it Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. TWO ALTERNATIVE IMPLICIT ASSUMPTIONS ARE NAMED, AND THE STANDARD POPULATION IS PUT IN SCARE QUOTES: researchers - OFTEN IMPLICITLY - ASSUME that EITHER there is little variation across human populations, OR that these STANDARD SUBJECTS are as representative of the species as any other population - and then: ARE THESE ASSUMPTIONS JUSTIFIED? Two different premises would license the same practice, and the paper separates them before testing either Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. THE SAMPLE IS CHARACTERISED BY ITS POSITION IN THE DISTRIBUTION RATHER THAN BY ITS SIZE: the review suggests BOTH substantial variability across populations AND that these subjects are PARTICULARLY UNUSUAL compared with the rest of the species - FREQUENT OUTLIERS. Not merely narrow but atypical, and the two are separate findings Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. THE VERDICT IS PUT IN SUPERLATIVE FORM AND SCOPED TO A PURPOSE: members of these societies, INCLUDING YOUNG CHILDREN, are AMONG THE LEAST REPRESENTATIVE POPULATIONS ONE COULD FIND FOR GENERALIZING ABOUT HUMANS. The qualifier is doing the work - they are not unrepresentative in general, but for one specific inferential use Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. A PRESUMPTION OF UNIVERSALITY IS DENIED A PRIORI GROUNDS, AND THE DOMAINS ARE NAMED FIRST: many of the findings involve domains ASSOCIATED WITH FUNDAMENTAL ASPECTS of psychology - HENCE Quotation withheld based on sampling from A SINGLE SUBPOPULATION. Being fundamental is shown not to license being universal Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. THE RECOMMENDATION IS A CHANGE OF MANNER RATHER THAN OF METHOD, AND THE SAMPLE IS DESCRIBED IN TWO ADJECTIVES: we need to be LESS CAVALIER in addressing questions of human nature on the basis of data drawn from this PARTICULARLY THIN, AND RATHER UNUSUAL, SLICE OF HUMANITY. `Thin` is about size and `unusual` about position, and the sentence needs both Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. A FIELD'S BOUNDARY IS DRAWN BY FIAT FOR THE PAPER'S OWN PURPOSES: the subject is the Western, and MORE SPECIFICALLY AMERICAN, undergraduates who form THE BULK OF THE DATABASE in psychology, cognitive science and economics, AS WELL AS ALLIED FIELDS - HEREAFTER COLLECTIVELY LABELED THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES. The category the whole critique is addressed to is created in a parenthesis about this quote: This is the span the dangling repair extended earlier today - it had ended at "...allied fields (hereafter collectively labeled the", with the term missing, and the repair recovered “behavioral sciences” from the file. I had not read the paper at that point. Reading it now confirms the extension was exactly right: the category the entire critique is addressed to is created in that parenthesis. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. THE PAPER'S CENTRAL QUESTION IS PUT AS A QUESTION ABOUT WARRANT, NOT ABOUT FACT: given that scientific knowledge is LARGELY BASED ON FINDINGS FROM THIS SUBPOPULATION, we ask JUST HOW REPRESENTATIVE these typical subjects are in light of the available comparative database - Quotation withheld FOR THEIR FINDINGS? Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. THE EVIDENCE NEEDED TO CHECK THE CLAIMS IS RARER THAN THE CLAIMS, AND THE COMPARISON IS MADE EXPLICITLY: large-scale comparative studies are HIGHLY INFORMATIVE but RATHER RARE, ESPECIALLY WHEN COMPARED TO THE FREQUENCY OF SPECIES-GENERALIZING CLAIMS - so when they were absent the authors fell back on assemblies of two- and three-population studies. The asymmetry between how often a scope is claimed and how often it is tested is stated as a ratio Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. THE SAMPLING UNIVERSE IS MEASURED RATHER THAN CHARACTERISED, AND ITS COMPOSITION IS THEN EXPLAINED BY THE AUTHORS' OWN GEOGRAPHY: 68% of subjects came from the United States and A FULL 96% from Western industrialized countries - and THE MAKE-UP OF THESE SAMPLES APPEARS TO LARGELY REFLECT THE COUNTRY OF RESIDENCE OF THE AUTHORS. Who is studied is traced to who is doing the studying Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. A CATEGORY IS NAMED FOR WHAT WAS ASSUMED ABOUT IT RATHER THAN FOR WHAT IT IS: the domains at issue are those which have LARGELY BEEN ASSUMED, AT LEAST UNTIL RECENTLY, TO BE **DE FACTO** PSYCHOLOGICAL UNIVERSALS. The label records a presumption and its expiry date, not a property Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. A MODEL FAILS ON THE GAME AS PLAYED, IS MODIFIED UNTIL IT MATCHES, AND THE MODIFICATION BECOMES THE EXPLANATION: WHEN THEY MODELED THE ULTIMATUM GAME EXACTLY AS PLAYED, THEY DID NOT GET RESULTS MATCHING THE UNDERGRADUATE FINDINGS - HOWEVER, IF THEY ADDED REPUTATIONAL INFORMATION, the analysis predicted offers and rejections IN THE RANGE OF TYPICAL UNDERGRADUATE RESPONSES. The added ingredient was absent from the experiment it was fitted to Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. AND THE CONCLUSION DRAWN FROM THE FITTED MODEL WAS ABOUT THE SPECIES: they concluded that the game REVEALS HUMANS' SPECIES-SPECIFIC EVOLVED CAPACITY for fair and punishing behavior - a claim about human nature resting on a model that had to be modified before it would reproduce one population's results about this quote: RE-SLICED, and the qualifier is UNREACHABLE. The sentence continues "in situations with substantial reputational influence" - but the staged text reads "substantial reputainfluence. But, since the Ultimatum Game is tional typically played one-shot": 'reputational' is split, its halves fused and displaced across the following clause. Damage shape 5. I first tried ending at "substantial reputa", which the cut-word guard refused - correctly, since dodging a scramble by stopping inside a word is not a fix. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. THE WHOLE PICTURE IS SAID TO HAVE BEEN OVERTURNED IN ONE SENTENCE, AND BY COMPARISON RATHER THAN BY THEORY: Quotation withheld The correction came from widening the population, not from a better model about this quote: TRIMMED. The next sentence reads "Two unified projects (which we call Phase [RUNNING HEAD: Henrich et al.: The weirdest people in the world?] 1 and Phase 2) have deployed..." - the running head is spliced INSIDE the parenthesis, so the detail about 23 small-scale societies cannot be reached from a contiguous span. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. THE ACRONYM IS DISCLAIMED IN A NUMBERED NOTE, WHICH IS THE PUREST CASE IN THE CORPUS OF A TERM DOING WORK ITS COINERS DENY INTENDING: we also use the term WEIRD throughout this paper TO REFER TO THE EXCEPTIONAL NATURE OF THIS SAMPLE, AND DO NOT INTEND ANY NEGATIVE CONNOTATIONS OR MORAL JUDGMENTS BY THE ACRONYM. They chose a word that means `strange`, put it in the title, and formally disavowed its ordinary meaning in a footnote Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. what this limits: the representativeness assessment itself: OUR EXAMINATION ... IS NECESSARILY RESTRICTED TO THE RATHER LIMITED DATABASE CURRENTLY AVAILABLE Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. what this limits: the magnitude of the WEIRD problem: BECAUSE PROPER COMPARATIVE DATA ARE LACKING FOR MOST STUDIED PHENOMENA, WE CANNOT ACCURATELY EVALUATE THE FULL EXTENT OF HOW UNUSUAL WEIRD PEOPLE ARE - the bias cannot be sized for the reason it exists Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. what this limits: the Americans-versus-other-Westerners contrast: WE COULD FIND NO SYSTEMATIC RESEARCH PROGRAM TO COMPARE AMERICANS WITH OTHER WESTERNERS, SO THE EVIDENCE PRESENTED IS ASSEMBLED FROM MANY SOURCES Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. what this limits: the completeness of the survey: WE HAVE SURELY OVERLOOKED RELEVANT MATERIAL Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. what this limits: any behavioural-science finding as a claim about humans: 96% of samples come from countries with 12% of the world's population Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. what this limits: the sample composition as a methodological choice: the paper attributes it to the authors' country of residence Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. what this limits: a Western sample as representative of Western populations: the paper states most are composed solely of psychology undergraduates Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. what this limits: the participant pool as an approximation to humanity: an American undergraduate is stated to be over 4,000 times more likely to be a participant than someone outside the West Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. WEIRD samples Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. generalizability Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. standard subjects Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. behavioral sciences Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. WEIRD Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. generalizability WEIRD samples strength of the relation: 1 Audit 2026-09-28: DOUBTFUL - read against its full span and kept, but WEIRD populations are among the least representative for generalizing; contrasted-with is loose. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. WEIRD standard subjects strength of the relation: 0.8 · note: ONE POPULATION, TWO NAMES, AND THE NAMES DISAGREE ABOUT IT. 'standard subjects' is the field's own term, and the paper puts it in scare quotes; 'WEIRD' is the name the paper coins for the same people in order to deny that they are standard. Weight 0.8 - the co-reference is clear from the sentence, but the paper never writes 'X is also called Y'; it stages the two names against each other. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. species-level generality Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. domains reviewed Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. WEIRD Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. behavioral sciences Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. standard subjects Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. comparative database Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. mean Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. variance Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.

The full text of this article is not redistributable, so it is not included here. The evidence sentences are withheld with it; the tag layer and its grounding status remain. The article itself is at https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X0999152X.