The WEIRDest People in the World
Learn more about Dr. Henrich's new book, The Weirdest People in the World, available now!
https://weirdpeople.fas.harvard.edu https://secretofoursuccess.fas.harvard.edu
Guiding Questions
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How has culture shaped our species genetic evolution, including our physiology, anatomy and psychology? How can we use evolutionary theory to understand how people learn and transmit culture, and how does this lay a foundation for building a theory of cultural evolution? How can we understand human social status? What’s the nature of prestige? How can we explain the breadth, intensity and peculiar character of human sociality and cooperation? What role has war and other forms of intergroup conflict played in human evolution, particularly in the evolution of cooperation and sociality? In only about 12,000 years, how did human societies expand from relatively small-scale hunter-gatherer bands to vast and complex nation states? What drives innovation and the process of cumulative cultural evolution? How does cultural evolution shape our psychology, brains, motivations, hormonal responses, intuitive reactions, beliefs, worldviews and preferences? How can we account for the immense psychological variation we observe across the globe? How can we explain the peculiar psychological and behavioral patterns observed in societies that are Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD societies)? |
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What drove human evolution? How did our species go from being a relatively unremarkable primate a few million years ago to the most successful species on the globe?
Joe Henrich on Twitter
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At Harvard, the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology seeks applications for one full-time or two half-time lecturers for the 2021-2022 academic year. t.co/goq0HjXCq8
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Thanks to @TheIHS for hosting @JoHenrich! I just got his book and it is so interesting and engaging. It's the kind of book I've been wanting to read for sometime t.co/yCY80BtAhU
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The Wenner-Gren Foundation is hosting a grad school application workshop for underrepresented scholars next week! If you're interested in applying to grad school programs like ours in HEB, this is a great opportunity to learn about how to navigate the process! t.co/3J8ZNPVAkf
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I'm quite excited to have received this grant (w/ @slingerland20), it feels weird to have such largess in these times but it will let us keep five postdocs employed over the next three years and produce important research on the history of religion. Stay tuned! t.co/1rGufybM5p
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See the coverage of our new grant from @UBC "Database of Religious History awarded largest grant for a UBC humanities research project" t.co/f3QoM6sphP
