Beyond WEIRD Psychology: Measuring and Mapping Scales of Cultural and Psychological Distance to Predict Innovation, Immigration, and the Success of Institutions

Abstract

I'll present a new tool that provides a means to measure the psychological and cultural distance between two societies and create a distance scale with any population as the point of comparison. Since psychological data is dominated by samples drawn from the United States, United Kingdom and other WEIRD nations, this tool provides a “WEIRD scale” to assist researchers in systematically extending the existing database of psychological phenomena to more diverse and globally representative samples.

Cultural differences are key to understanding many aspects of life. I'll also discuss some in progress work showing how cultural distances between countries predict innovation and immigrant success, and how differences within countries or political units predict trust and the success of democratic institutions. These results may have implications for understanding the rise of polarized politics and the success of the European Union.

Sandwich lunch available from 12.30pm, seminar starts at 1.00pm.