Jonathan Haidt – The Groupish Gene
Part of the Cognitive Science of Morality seminar series, 2012. For nearly 50 years scientists have generally agreed that selfish genes shaped human nature to be mostly selfish, with exceptions made toward kin, partners in reciprocity, and a few other cases. Group selection was banished from respectable discourse. But recent findings from multiple fields have […]
Joe Henrich on “This View of Life”
Are Taboos Adaptive? Evidence from the Island of Fiji from This View of Life.
Ara Norenzayan on NPR
Ara was recently featured in a piece on National Public Radio.
Ara Norenzayan Interview on DR
Ara Norenzayan was interviewed recently by the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR). Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
Kevin Laland – The Evolution of Culture
Part of the Emerging Science of Culture seminar series, 2011 Both demographically and ecologically, humans are a remarkably successful species. This success is generally attributed to our capacity for culture. But how did our species’ extraordinary cultural capabilities evolve from its roots in animal social learning and tradition? In this seminar Kevin Laland provided a […]
Steve Heine, Joe Henrich, and Ara Norenzayan – The Weirdest People in the World
Part of the Emerging Science of Culture seminar series, 2011 Behavioral scientists routinely publish broad claims about human psychology and behavior in the world’s top journals based on samples drawn entirely from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Researchers—often implicitly—assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that these “standard […]
Joan Chiao – Cultural Neurosciences: Bridging Cultural and Biological Sciences
Part of the Emerging Science of Culture seminar series, 2011: The study of culture and biology has long stood stratified within the social and natural sciences, a gap that physicist C.P. Snow (1959) famously called “the two cultures.” To examine the bidirectional influence of culture and genes on brain and behavior, cultural neuroscience is an […]
David Sloan Wilson – Using Evolution to Improve the Quality of Everyday Life
September 11th, 2012 – part of our “Evolution of Religion, Cooperation and Morality” lecture series.
Jonathan Haidt – The Righteous Mind
April 2nd, 2012 – Part of our “Cognitive Science of Morality” lecture series.
Psychology Studies Biased toward Western Undergrads – HECC on Scientific American Podcast
Anyone familiar with psychology has probably heard a statement like this: A significant percentage of male & female undergraduates displayed X when prompted by Y. And typically the conclusion of the study is something like: So humans display X in the presence of Y. Taking the behavior of undergrads and extending it to all of humanity is an […]