Westerners vs.the World: We are the weird ones

http://www.nationalpost.com/Westerners+World+weird+ones/3427126/story.html

by onoj • 16 years ago

16 10 16 years ago

pyre• 16 years ago

I see quite a few flaws in the article:

1. The author keeps flipping back and forth between defining the set of 'weird' people as all 'Westerners' and just 'rich, educated Westerners.'

[ edit: Further thought/reading brings up the references to 'privileged Westerners' as well. This whole aspect of the article seems to only be there to: a) inflame the reader or b) provoke feelings of guilt in the reader (since the audience here are the 'privileged Westerners that they are speaking of). ]

2. They state that Westerners are 'weird' because they are different from the rest of the world, but only present single anecdotes as evidence (i.e. "Westerners differ from Amazon Tribe X in test Y" then "Westerners differ from Chinese in test Z"). All this seems to say to me is that maybe it's impossible to generalize about the human condition because too many factors are dependent on culture.

  > "We live in this world with police and institutions and pre-packaged food,
  > TV, the Internet, watches and clocks and calendars. Our heads are loaded with
  > all this information for navigating those environments. So we should expect
  > our brains to be distorted," Dr. Henrich says.

3. Are our brains really 'distorted' or just different? Who is to say what is the better/natural/whatever way of thinking?

4. I found it extremely annoying that they capitalized the word 'weird' everywhere, even in quotes from experts.

  > The UBC researchers acknowledge the limits of what is known about
  > WEIRD versus non-WEIRD populations. Because data comparing how
  > people from different populations think is relatively hard to come by, the
  > authors write, "we cannot accurately evaluate the full extent of how unusual
  > WEIRD people are."

  > "This is, however, precisely the point. We hope research teams will be
  > inspired to span the globe and prove our claims of non-representativeness
  > wrong."

5. So you spent the entire article trying to highlight the significance of this finding and trying to backup their claims as being rock solid, only to say, "of course, this could be complete bunk," at the end?

peti• 16 years ago

WEIRD stands for "Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic", which explains the capitalization.

Devilboy2• 16 years ago

3. Are our brains really 'distorted' or just different? Who is to say what is the better/natural/whatever way of thinking?

In this case there is a clear logical answer.

4. I found it extremely annoying that they capitalized the word 'weird' everywhere, even in quotes from experts.

They do this because they've defined WEIRD to mean something specific and they want to make it clear that they're not using the dictionary definition of the word.

riffraff2• 16 years ago

The ultimatum game as described in the article does not make sense. It is important, and not explained, that the offer is made only once, and that the other party is aware of the game (eg: "here is X" -> "cool thanks" vs "here is 1/100 of what I get if you accept this" -> "screw you").

Devilboy2• 16 years ago

The offer is made only once and the other party is aware of the game.

riffraff2• 16 years ago

I must have explained myself badly: I meant, this information is not in the article :)

stretchwithme• 16 years ago

Everybody's weird when compared to everyone else. The only comparison you can do is with a mean or an average. Most will not be sitting at the mean.

Yes, we live so strangely. Thats why everybody is abandoning technology so they go back to digging for gourds.

Faster, better, cheaper, wealthier. Yeah its strange. And weird means bad, right? But wouldn't any improvement at all be unusual?

Bad, bad innovators!

And to think, for a second there, we were under the mistaken impression that to use one's mind and to succeed at it was the birthright of every human.

edanm• 16 years ago

There's a bigger problem than only using "WEIRD" people in experiments; most experiments I've seen seem to substitute college students for all of humanity! I'm pretty sure half our understanding of Psychology really only applies to 20-year-old students, not to all of humanity! :)

mbenjaminsmith• 16 years ago

Man, I have to say that 'Weird' really rubs me the wrong way. Grouping those classifications together suggests that non-Western people are by definition uneducated and living in undeveloped, poor, totalitarian backwaters.

The picture on top is of a village in Chile. We see the rich Western scientist talking to these poor farmers who apparently are so stupid they don't know the finer points of Game Theory.

Also, Chile as non-Western is questionable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world

If you've never been there, google for photos of Santiago. The urban elite there would most likely have very different values than that American scientist, but have probably just as little in common with the farmers pictured. Many would be better educated and be far wealthier than that scientist. Replace Santiago with almost any non-Western urban center and you could say the same thing.

Weird also is silly because it suggests that all people living in Western democracies are rich. "How much would you offer? If it's close to half the loot, you're a typical North American." The average North American is not rich. The average American salary is circa 30k per year. Taxes are very high. Cost of living is very high. Disposable income and buying power are low. Fine dining and travel are expensive. Education, health care and insurance are barely affordable.

One of my brothers and his wife are public servants (American). Both have college degrees. Both are very hard working people. My brother moonlights as a commuter pilot. They can afford to have to kids because their insurances are covered by the government. They can't, however, afford to send their oldest daughter (a 4.0 student) to a decent university. They've had to compromise and send her to a second- or third-tier school.

How is that being rich? Isn't that sort of the opposite of being rich?

In comparison, my girlfriend's family (Asian) earned less in dollar terms while my girlfriend was in college. They're not wealthy (by any measure). They can afford to have kids because healthcare is affordable (by any measure) and they could afford to send her to the #1 university in the country after she passed the entrance exams. She graduated without any debt whatsoever, has had a very strong career and has worked for two of the top-three global companies in her field.

Again, her family is not rich. But it's hard not to say they're way better off than my brother's family.

Isn't that weird?

abrown28• 16 years ago

You are an idiot

Westerners vs.the World: We are the weird ones

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