#344 Joseph Henrich: Cultural Evolution, Human Cooperation, and WEIRD Psychology
RECORDED ON JUNE 12th 2020.
Dr. Joseph Henrich is Professor and chair of The Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. He is interested in the question of how humans evolved from “being a relatively unremarkable primate a few million years ago to the most successful species on the globe”, and how culture affected our genetic development. He is also the author of The Secret of Our Success and The WEIRDest People in World.
In this episode, we talk about some of the main topics in Dr. Henrich’s vast and interdisciplinary work. We first discuss the trouble with trying to integrate knowledge from different social sciences. Then, we talk about biases in cultural transmission, and genetic and cultural evolution. We also discuss the evolution of human cooperation, how societies scaled up, and the role of prosocial religions and Big Gods. We also talk about the Cultural Brain Hypothesis, collective intelligence, and a cultural evolutionary take on IQ. We characterize WEIRD psychology, comment a bit on Cecilia Heyes’ take on cultural evolutionary theory, and finally get Dr. Henrich’s take on group selection.
Time Links:
An integrative approach to the study of human behavior
Biases in cultural transmission
Can culture modify cognitive mechanisms? And how?
How to disentangle genetic evolution from cultural evolution
The evolution of human cooperation
How societies scaled up
The role of religion
Are there any atheistic societies out there?
The Cultural Brain Hypothesis, collective intelligence, and IQ
What is WEIRD psychology?
Are there aspects of human psychology that are more malleable by culture than others?
Is there a “human nature”?
About Cecillia Heyes’ work
Group selection (genetic and cultural)
Follow Dr. Henrich’s work!
Follow Dr. Henrich’s work:
Faculty page: https://bit.ly/3aQSlww
Website: https://bit.ly/2MW4oPE
Culture, Cognition and Coevolution Lab: https://bit.ly/3cUV4pz
Culture, Cognition and Coevolution Lab (YT channel): https://bit.ly/2Aw0RVt
Works on ResearchGate: https://bit.ly/35jLQku
Books on Amazon: https://amzn.to/30Ct4Vl
The Secret of Our Success: https://amzn.to/2y6ZhbC
Twitter handle: @JoHenrich