Western industrialized populations are psychological outliers at the extreme end of a human spectrum

Evidence

For most psychological characteristics, there is a spectrum that reflects the human species. What is more striking is that, in survey after survey, my colleagues and I have found that WEIRD people occupy the extreme end of this spectrum. The WEIRDer people are, the more likely they are psychological outliers in the context of the world. WEIRD psychology, to name a few key features, means literate, living in large anonymous groups, participating in markets with money, and internalizing norms for cooperation with strangers. For the subset of those who are Westerners, it also means hyperanalytical thinking, experiencing the self as being autonomous and independent, emphasizing choice and personal control, and having a narrow conception of morality that revolves around caring/not harming, fairness, and justice. WEIRD populations are atypical of other human populations, and results obtained with these samples may reflect somewhat different psychological tendencies. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 189

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines what WEIRD psychology concretely consists of: literacy, anonymous groups, market money, stranger cooperation, hyperanalytical thinking, autonomous self, narrow harm/fairness morality.
• XREF: The narrow WEIRD morality revolving around harm/fairness/justice sets up the contrast with religious pro-sociality and omniscient-god morality Norenzayan builds toward; connects to the reader’s Big God vs. partner-choice framework. — connects to: Lerner claimed modern people possess psychological empathy that traditional people lack — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 250