Daniel Sznycer

This is avoidable and avoided in much research, but it’s easy to default to folk thinking when we talk about a category of categories like WEIRD [End]

- Culture is an object or a substance or an essence, so Japan/US/Ecuador *has* a culture - Culture is a homogeneous thing, true across domains, hence *Japanese/US/Ecuadorian* culture - A culture is a type, hence WEIRD vs. non-WEIRD cultures

I think it's great that we are measuring and modeling culture. But I think the science of culture is still based on folk notions. Things that are intuitive because of how the mind works but aren't necessarily good as causal models of culture, whatever culture might be.

Oliver Sng Toshio Yamagishi Michael Varnum And many others

@durkeepk @samuelmehr @mmkrasnow @AndyDelton @DrQueue @lamba_shakti @michael_barlev @tscottphillips @PaulvanLange @ME_McCullough @ed_hagen @w_mcauliffe @DorsaAmir @esworldwide @RuedenChris @MicheleJGelfand @florianvl @rlmcelreath Deb Lieberman Eric Pedersen Dan Balliet

@Oliver_S_Curry @azimshariff @ImHardcory @EPoe187 @ThomasTalhelm @M_B_Petersen @ahra_ko @JaimieKrems @joshtybur @KhandisBlake @mmuthukrishna @xygalatas @PascalBoyerUSA @baumard_nicolas @tavitonst @RebeccaSear @zhgarfield @ShinobuKitayama @ProfDavidBuss @dconroybeam

I think much of the research being done on ecological, economic, cognitive, phylogenetic aspects of culture are steps in the right direction Great work being done by authors of WEIRD and others @JoHenrich @PsychoSchmitt @SpeciesTypical @joannaschug @masakiyuuuuki

To be clear, I'm not saying the WEIRD thing isn't a thing. Although I'm also not saying the WEIRD thing is a thing.

WEIRD is used sociologically and talismanically

I’m guilty of the above too

India before Mturk = trekking = value = non-Western. India with Mturk = no trekking = no value = Western.

2019. Me: I have this mturk finding replicated in the US and India! Reviewer 2: Duh, India is Westernized. Stop being parochial! I got that several times

1980. Author: I have this cool finding from India! 2012. Me: I have this finding from the US! Reviewer 2: But US is WEIRD; in non-WEIRD India they do things differently. Stop being parochial!

The W in WEIRD is West not because it's West but because there's little trekking and sweating. We in the West are in the West already so we don’t have to trek to get to the West.

We use WEIRD weirdly, though. Sometimes WEIRD occurs in the same breath with the labor theory of value creation: Your data are informative if you had to trek a lot to collect them. If you got your mturk data by sitting, well, forget about it.

WEIRD was penned as a memorable thing. A reminder to think about human diversity. Like RSVP. Not a concept or an explanation. A good idea, since you’ll miss a lot if you study only undergrads.

It may be that West is WEIRD concept. A “WEIRD” concept.

So how is Westerliness relevant to culture, causally speaking? Although Westerliness can be OK descriptively.