Ecological Threats and Cultural Systems
Soheil Shapouri, Yasaman Rafiee · 2024
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Description
Soheil Shapouri and Yasaman Rafiee tested in 2024 whether ecological threats explain why some cultures are more collectivist, putting group needs above the individual. Disease outbreaks and natural disasters have been proposed as drivers, since both demand cooperation. The team used old and new measures of germ stress and disasters across 188 countries.
After accounting for national wealth, neither disasters nor infectious disease predicted collectivism scores. The null result held across different threat measures. The authors argue that past positive findings likely came from small, unrepresentative culture samples. They urge data-driven exploration over theory-only picks in cross-cultural work, to avoid unreliable claims about universal patterns.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Soheil Shapouri, Yasaman Rafiee |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2024 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 34 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |