The WEIRDest People in the World

In this sweeping, provocative study, anthropologist Joseph Henrich – chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University – introduces the WEIRD psychological profile: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic. 

Most societies evolved kin-based institutions, but Western people opted to create societies in which the individual reigns supreme – a choice tied to the Western embrace of mobility, literacy and voluntary group membership. Joseph Henrich argues that this seismic shift spurred urbanization, modern government, industrialization, competition and innovation. Combining painstaking research with broad historical narratives, he delivers a spellbinding treatise on the psychological “dark matter” that fuels cultural evolution.