{"id":226,"date":"2015-09-09T18:03:37","date_gmt":"2015-09-09T18:03:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.candelalearning.com\/compreader\/?post_type=chapter&p=226"},"modified":"2015-09-09T18:06:26","modified_gmt":"2015-09-09T18:06:26","slug":"audio-psychologys-unhealthy-obsession-with-the-weirdest-people-in-the-world-by-david-mcraney","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-readinganthology\/chapter\/audio-psychologys-unhealthy-obsession-with-the-weirdest-people-in-the-world-by-david-mcraney\/","title":{"raw":"Audio: \"Psychology\u2019s unhealthy obsession with the WEIRDest people in the world\" by David McRaney","rendered":"Audio: “Psychology\u2019s unhealthy obsession with the WEIRDest people in the world” by David McRaney"},"content":{"raw":"

Psychology studies are almost always about WEIRD people: Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic \u2013 the kind of people who make up less than 15 percent of the world's population.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n\r\nIs psychology too WEIRD?\r\n\r\nThat\u2019s what this episode\u2019s guest, psychologist Steven J. Heine, suggested when he and his colleagues published a paper revealing that psychology wasn\u2019t the study of the human mind, but the study of one kind of human mind, the sort of mind generated by the kinds of brains that happen to be conveniently located near the places where research is usually conducted.\r\n\r\nWhen you hear about \u201csubjects\u201d in a psychology paper, those subjects are almost always North American college undergraduates or students from Australia or the UK, members of a cohort many scientists now label as the WEIRDest people in the world, short for Western, Education, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic \u2013 the kind of people who make up less than 15 percent of the world\u2019s population.\r\n\r\nOur guest, Steven J. Heine, was one of the authors of a paper that lead to psychology\u2019s greatest epiphany in decades, many (if not all) of the human universals discovered in all of field\u2019s most famous experiments are actually universals among only one demographic, not the entire human species. It was kind of like biologists suddenly learning they had based their entire science just on the animals living in a single cave in Montana.\r\n\r\nIn this episode, you\u2019ll learn why it took so long to figure out it was studying outliers, and what it means for the future of psychology, neuroscience, and many other fields attempting that study human beings as a whole.\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/soundcloud.com\/youarenotsosmart\/055-weird-people-steven-j-heine","rendered":"

Psychology studies are almost always about WEIRD people: Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic \u2013 the kind of people who make up less than 15 percent of the world’s population.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Is psychology too WEIRD?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what this episode\u2019s guest, psychologist Steven J. Heine, suggested when he and his colleagues published a paper revealing that psychology wasn\u2019t the study of the human mind, but the study of one kind of human mind, the sort of mind generated by the kinds of brains that happen to be conveniently located near the places where research is usually conducted.<\/p>\n

When you hear about \u201csubjects\u201d in a psychology paper, those subjects are almost always North American college undergraduates or students from Australia or the UK, members of a cohort many scientists now label as the WEIRDest people in the world, short for Western, Education, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic \u2013 the kind of people who make up less than 15 percent of the world\u2019s population.<\/p>\n

Our guest, Steven J. Heine, was one of the authors of a paper that lead to psychology\u2019s greatest epiphany in decades, many (if not all) of the human universals discovered in all of field\u2019s most famous experiments are actually universals among only one demographic, not the entire human species. It was kind of like biologists suddenly learning they had based their entire science just on the animals living in a single cave in Montana.<\/p>\n

In this episode, you\u2019ll learn why it took so long to figure out it was studying outliers, and what it means for the future of psychology, neuroscience, and many other fields attempting that study human beings as a whole.<\/p>\n