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Ecological Threats and Cultural Systems : Epidemics and Natural Disasters Do Not Predict Collectivism
Soheil Shapouri1, Yasaman Rafiee2
1Department of Psychology, Lehigh University, 17 Memorial Dr. E, Bethlehem, PA, 18015, USA. sos523@lehigh.edu.
Human Nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.)
|November 28, 2024
Summary
Ecological threats like infectious diseases and natural disasters do not predict cultural collectivism. This large-scale study suggests previous findings linking these factors to collectivism may be unreliable due to small sample sizes.
Area of Science:
- Cross-cultural psychology
- Evolutionary anthropology
- Sociology
Background:
- Ecological threats, such as infectious diseases and natural disasters, have been theorized to drive the evolution of cultural collectivism.
- Previous research has suggested a link between parasite stress, natural disasters, and collectivist cultural norms.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the association between ecological threats (parasite stress and natural disasters) and collectivism across a large, diverse sample of countries.
- To test the robustness of previous findings using established and novel measurement tools.
Main Methods:
- Employed linear mixed-effect models to analyze data from 188 countries.
- Utilized established and novel measures for parasite stress and natural disaster frequency.
- Controlled for national wealth as a potential confounding variable.
Main Results:
- No significant association was found between natural disasters and collectivism scores.
- No significant association was found between infectious disease burden (parasite stress) and collectivism scores.
- Null findings were consistent across various measures of ecological threats, even after controlling for national wealth.
Conclusions:
- The study challenges the hypothesis that ecological threats are universal drivers of collectivism.
- Results suggest that prior findings may be artifacts of small, non-representative cultural samples.
- Recommends data-driven exploratory methods for future cross-cultural research on collectivism to identify previously unexamined factors.
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