TY - JOUR
T1 - How Do People Become W.E.I.R.D.? Migration Reveals the Cultural Transmission Mechanisms Underlying Variation in Psychological Processes
AU - Mesoudi, Alex
AU - Magid, Kesson
AU - Hussain, Delwar
PY - 2016/1/13
Y1 - 2016/1/13
N2 - Cultural psychologists have shown that people from Western, Educated, Industrialised,
Rich, Democratic (WEIRD) countries often exhibit different psychological processing to
people from less-WEIRD countries. The former exhibit more individualistic and less collectivistic
social orientation, and more analytic and less holistic cognition, than non-Westerners.
Yet the mechanisms responsible for maintaining this cultural variation are unclear.
Immigration is an ideal ‘natural experiment’ for uncovering such mechanisms.We used a
battery of psychological measures previously shown to vary cross-culturally to compare the
social orientation and cognitive style of 286 residents of East London from three cultural
backgrounds: (i) 1st-generation British Bangladeshi immigrants; (ii) 2nd-generation British
Bangladeshis raised in the UK to Bangladeshi-raised parents; and (iii) non-migrants whose
parents were born and raised in the UK. Model comparison revealed that individualism and
dispositional attribution, typical of Western societies, are driven primarily by horizontal cultural
transmission (e.g. via mass media), with parents and other family members having little
or no effect, while collectivism, social closeness and situational attribution were driven by a
mix of vertical/oblique cultural transmission (e.g. via family contact) and horizontal cultural
transmission. These individual-level transmission dynamics can explain hitherto puzzling
population-level phenomena, such as the partial acculturation of 2nd-generation immigrants
on measures such as collectivism (due to the mix of vertical and horizontal cultural transmission),
or the observation in several countries of increasing individualism (which is transmitted
horizontally and therefore rapidly) despite little corresponding change in collectivism
(which is transmitted partly vertically and therefore more slowly). Further consideration of
cultural transmission mechanisms, in conjunction with the study of migrant communities
and model comparison statistics, can shed light on the persistence of, and changes in, culturally-variable psychological processes.
AB - Cultural psychologists have shown that people from Western, Educated, Industrialised,
Rich, Democratic (WEIRD) countries often exhibit different psychological processing to
people from less-WEIRD countries. The former exhibit more individualistic and less collectivistic
social orientation, and more analytic and less holistic cognition, than non-Westerners.
Yet the mechanisms responsible for maintaining this cultural variation are unclear.
Immigration is an ideal ‘natural experiment’ for uncovering such mechanisms.We used a
battery of psychological measures previously shown to vary cross-culturally to compare the
social orientation and cognitive style of 286 residents of East London from three cultural
backgrounds: (i) 1st-generation British Bangladeshi immigrants; (ii) 2nd-generation British
Bangladeshis raised in the UK to Bangladeshi-raised parents; and (iii) non-migrants whose
parents were born and raised in the UK. Model comparison revealed that individualism and
dispositional attribution, typical of Western societies, are driven primarily by horizontal cultural
transmission (e.g. via mass media), with parents and other family members having little
or no effect, while collectivism, social closeness and situational attribution were driven by a
mix of vertical/oblique cultural transmission (e.g. via family contact) and horizontal cultural
transmission. These individual-level transmission dynamics can explain hitherto puzzling
population-level phenomena, such as the partial acculturation of 2nd-generation immigrants
on measures such as collectivism (due to the mix of vertical and horizontal cultural transmission),
or the observation in several countries of increasing individualism (which is transmitted
horizontally and therefore rapidly) despite little corresponding change in collectivism
(which is transmitted partly vertically and therefore more slowly). Further consideration of
cultural transmission mechanisms, in conjunction with the study of migrant communities
and model comparison statistics, can shed light on the persistence of, and changes in, culturally-variable psychological processes.
U2 - 10.1371/journal. pone.0147162
DO - 10.1371/journal. pone.0147162
M3 - Article
SN - 1932-6203
SP - 1
EP - 17
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
ER -