People quasi-randomly assigned to farm rice are more collectivistic than people assigned to farm wheat.

Journal

Nature communications

ISSN: 2041-1723

Titre abrégé: Nat Commun

Pays: England

ID NLM: 101528555

Informations de publication

Date de publication:
27 Feb 2024

Historique:

received: 05 08 2022

accepted: 21 12 2023

medline: 28 2 2024

pubmed: 28 2 2024

entrez: 27 2 2024

Statut: epublish

Résumé

The rice theory of culture argues that the high labor demands and interdependent irrigation networks of paddy rice farming makes cultures more collectivistic than wheat-farming cultures. Despite prior evidence, proving causality is difficult because people are not randomly assigned to farm rice. In this study, we take advantage of a unique time when the Chinese government quasi-randomly assigned people to farm rice or wheat in two state farms that are otherwise nearly identical. The rice farmers show less individualism, more loyalty/nepotism toward a friend over a stranger, and more relational thought style. These results rule out confounds in tests of the rice theory, such as temperature, latitude, and historical events. The differences suggest rice-wheat cultural differences can form in a single generation.

Identifiants

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-44770-w PMID: 38413584

pubmed: 38413584

doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-44770-w

pii: 10.1038/s41467-024-44770-w

doi:

Types de publication

Journal Article

Langues

eng

Sous-ensembles de citation

Pagination

1782

Informations de copyright

Références

Talhelm, T. et al. Large-scale psychological differences within China explained by rice versus wheat agriculture. Science 344, 603–608 (2014).

doi: 10.1126/science.1246850 pubmed: 24812395

Talhelm, T. & Oishi, S. Socioeconomic Environment And Human Psychology (eds. Uskul, A. K. & Oishi, S.) p. 53–76 (Oxford University Press, 2018).

Bray, F. The Rice Economies: Technology And Development In Asian Societies (Blackwell, 1986).

Talhelm, T. & English, A. S. Historically rice-farming societies have tighter social norms in China and worldwide. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 117, 19816–19824 (2020).

doi: 10.1073/pnas.1909909117 pubmed: 32732432 pmcid: 7443949

Buggle, J. C. Growing collectivism: irrigation, group conformity and technological divergence. J. Econ. Growth 25, 147–193 (2020).

doi: 10.1007/s10887-020-09178-3

Woodward, D. A new direction for China’s state farms. Pac. Aff. 55, 231–251 (1982).

doi: 10.2307/2757595

Dong, X., Talhelm, T. & Ren, X. Teens in rice county are more interdependent and think more holistically than nearby wheat county. Soc. Psychol. Personal. Sci. 10, 966–976 (2018).

doi: 10.1177/1948550618808868

Zhang, H., Talhelm, T., Yang, Q. & Hu, C. S. High-status people are more individualistic and analytic-thinking in the West and wheat- farming areas, but not rice-farming areas. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 56, 878–895 (2021).

Lee, C.-S., Talhelm, T. & Dong, X. People in historically rice-farming areas are less happy and socially compare more than people in wheat-farming areas. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 124, 935–957 (2023).

doi: 10.1037/pspa0000324 pubmed: 36326675

Ji, L.-J., Zhang, Z. & Nisbett, R. E. Is it culture or is it language? Examination of language effects in cross-cultural research on categorization. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 87, 57–65 (2004).

doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.87.1.57 pubmed: 15250792

Lianhu Local Chronicles Editorial Board. Lianhu Farm Chronicles (Lianhu Publishing Committee, 2009).

Qukou Local Chronicles Editorial Board. Qukou Farm Chronicles (Qukou Publishing Committee, 2010).

Evans, H. Review of across the great divide: the sent-down youth movement in Mao’s China, 1968–1980. China Q. 242, 593–595 (2020).

doi: 10.1017/S030574102000034X

Chiao, J. Y. & Blizinsky, K. D. Culture–gene coevolution of individualism–collectivism and the serotonin transporter gene. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B Biol. Sci. 277, 529–537 (2010).

Zhu, C. et al. Relationship between rice farming and polygenic scores potentially linked to agriculture in China. R. Soc. Open Sci. 8, 210382 (2021).

doi: 10.1098/rsos.210382 pubmed: 34457340 pmcid: 8371358

Morgan, S. L. Economic growth and the biological standard of living in China, 1880–1930. Econ. Hum. Biol. 2, 197–218 (2004).

doi: 10.1016/j.ehb.2004.03.002 pubmed: 15464002

Kitayama, S., Park, H., Sevincer, A. T., Karasawa, M. & Uskul, A. K. A cultural task analysis of implicit independence: comparing North America, Western Europe, and East Asia. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 97, 236–255 (2009).

doi: 10.1037/a0015999 pubmed: 19634973

Wang, C. S., Leung, A. K.-y, See, Y. H. M. & Gao, X. Y. The effects of culture and friendship on rewarding honesty and punishing deception. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 47, 1295–1299 (2011).

doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2011.04.011

Uskul, A. K., Kitayama, S. & Nisbett, R. E. Ecocultural basis of cognition: Farmers and fishermen are more holistic than herders. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 105, 8552–8556 (2008).

doi: 10.1073/pnas.0803874105 pubmed: 18552175 pmcid: 2438425

Talhelm, T., Zhang, X. & Oishi, S. Moving chairs in Starbucks: observational studies find rice-wheat cultural differences. Sci. Adv. 4, eaap8469 (2018).

doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aap8469 pubmed: 29707634 pmcid: 5916507

Thomson, R. et al. Relational mobility predicts social behaviors in 39 countries and is tied to historical farming and threat. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 115, 7521–7526 (2018).

doi: 10.1073/pnas.1713191115 pubmed: 29959208 pmcid: 6055178

Noblit, G. The Origin and Evolution of Chinese Lineages (Harvard University, 2022).

Schulz, J. F., Bahrami-Rad, D., Beauchamp, J. P. & Henrich, J. The Church, intensive kinship, and global psychological variation. Science 366, eaau5141 (2019).

doi: 10.1126/science.aau5141 pubmed: 31699908

Holden, C. & Mace, R. Phylogenetic analysis of the evolution of lactose digestion in adults. Hum. Biol. 81, 597–620 (2009).

doi: 10.1353/hub.2009.a381872 pubmed: 20504185

Nisbett, R. E., Peng, K., Choi, I. & Norenzayan, A. Culture and systems of thought: Holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychol. Rev. 108, 291–310 (2001).

doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.108.2.291 pubmed: 11381831

Korupp, S. E., Ganzeboom, H. B. G. & Van Der Lippe, T. Do mothers matter? A comparison of models of the influence of mothers’ and fathers’ educational and occupational status on children’s educational attainment. Qual. Quant. 36, 17–42 (2002).

doi: 10.1023/A:1014393223522

Heine, S. J., Lehman, D. R., Peng, K. & Greenholtz, J. What’s wrong with cross-cultural comparisons of subjective Likert scales? The reference-group effect. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 82, 903–918 (2002).

doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.82.6.903 pubmed: 12051579

Oyserman, D., Coon, H. M. & Kemmelmeier, M. Rethinking individualism and collectivism: Evaluation of theoretical assumptions and meta-analyses. Psychol. Bull. 128, 3–72 (2002).

doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.128.1.3 pubmed: 11843547

Guo, Z., Guo, R., Xu, C. & Wu, Z. Reflexive or reflective? Group bias in third-party punishment in Chinese and Western cultures. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 100, 104284 (2022).

doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2022.104284

Talhelm, T. Why Your Understanding of Collectivism Is Probably Wrong. APS Observer 32, 23–25 (2019).

Fei, X. Earthbound China: A study of rural economy in Yunnan (University of Chicago Press, 1945).

Apel, R. J. & Sweeten, G. Handbook Of Quantitative Criminology. p. 543–562 (Springer, 2010).