As usual, I admire the rigorous, nuanced, unassming, scientific, and methodical manner in which Henrich puts forth his hypotheses/theories on subjects that are too often miscontrued by people looking for simple answers. Would be happy to see reviews and counterarguments regarding what he writes as well.

This book was thorough and a good read. I think I am more cautious than most to avoid things that have any whiff of phrenology born out of my academic training as a geographer. So some of the concepts discussed in the book were difficult for me to agree fully on.

When this book first came out, I was really excited about it; god-knows where I heard about it first! Had to wait a while for it to filter into my reach. In the meantime, I read reviews about it and even watched the author speak on PBS, or some 'highbrow' public channel like that. Very strange behavior for me, someone who normally only gets excited about books while reading them, or after.

In any case, I am a lover of Jared Diamond's ideas espoused in "Guns, Germs, and Steel," and I see this book as a sort of complement to Diamond's. Henrich goes a step further than Diamond's bio/geographic determinism though and brings us from around 1000 AD to the present. He also offers convincing explanations of why it was Europe instead of the Islamic World, India, or China which rose to the forefront of scientific, militaristic, financial, and technologic advancement in recent centuries. All societies which according to Diamond should have equally shared in Eurasias's extended latitudinal opportunities for plant and animal domestication, and therefore similar chances for world domination.

Henrich argues that it was first the Catholic Church's strange practices of reducing the power of extended kin-groups in Europe and then various other protestanty-based ideals which further changed the social psychology of Europeans. And then how the habits of European social psychology bore fruit by encouraging higher rates of education, technological advancement, sharing with strangers, trust in non-related others, etc. I love how he repeatedly uses the word 'stumbled' to explain the Church's practices because it is hard to see how this could have possibly been a concerted effort centuries before the practices could even begin to be shown to shape society. It reminds me that for most of human history various organised religions have been the major meme-bags from which people advanced or distinguished themselves from others. So stumbled-upon seems justified here. So glad we don't have to find a new religion in order to justify playing with a new meme at present! Thoroughly a book to read for the ideas within.

As for the writing style, it's a bit janky and hard-to-read. One chapter gives a summary of group psychology experiments on 'WEIRD' people vs more 'average' (historically as well as numerically speaking) people, and the next chapter is a broadly-viewed historical narrative spanning continents and/or centuries at a time. I know the basis of the book is the group psych. experiments and the resultant differences they uncover - compared to customary psychology experiments which assume that human psychology is universal and that WEIRD people can be stand-ins for whomever. But damn, my eyes glossed over on a lot of that! I'm not a statistician, nor a psychologist, and I wish I didn't have to dig through all that to get to the ideas within Henrich's book. The gross historical summaries were much more my style, they even had a good flow. I should note too, that Henrich's humor and humility come out in his end-notes. They frequently gave me a chance to regroup and re-energise.

I did like the book, and I'll be chewing on Henrich's ideas for a good-while now. I'll also be spending my free time looking up maps of where Huguenots were thickest in France, what it means to be a Unitarian, and maybe even juicy, over-long sociology articles on East-asia's recent wholesale adoption of Western kin-bashing practices. Who knew monogamy could be so interesting?

As a preliminary to a much longer review I hope to write, let me say:

I found this book's central thesis compelling and persuasive: that WEIRD people (Western, Educated, Industrialized Rich, Democratic) are at the extreme end of many psychological indicators, but they're often viewed as "normal" because they're heavily overrepresented in psychological studies. And that the cause (or at least a major factor) of this WEIRDness is the Catholic Church's various marriage rules, especially its bans on cousin marriage. As a result, WEIRD people are very high in impersonal prosociality, but have much weaker extended family and kin group ties.

This basic thesis is interesting, and is heavily backed up with data, studies, and other analysis. It's not perhaps 100% convincing, but certainly well-founded enough to be taken extremely seriously. I think other parts of the book are more speculative (especially the second half.) I would have loved to see a deeper dive into psychological WEIRDness in a contemporary context, and a discussion of the variation even within countries like the US.

Instead the second half of the book ends up being a bit too speculative (and long) for my tastes, attempting to argue that most of the key differences between Western countries and the rest of the world are downstream of this cultural evolution, including the West's rapid economic development after about the year 1600. Certainly an interesting argument, and one that I think other economic/social historians should consider and address in their own analyses. It's probably one of the most persuasive single explanations for the divergence between the West and the rest of the world, but I'm always skeptical of any single explanation, and this is no exception.

Overall, it's a compelling book and I'd strongly recommend people read especially the first half—where psychological WEIRDness is described, and until the Church's MFP (marriage and family plan) is discussed. The second half of the book is less important and the argument is less airtight, but still worth reading and engaging with in my opinion.

A largely coherent argument for why the West is psychologically anomalous, without too much value judgement. It was quite dense in part and it's a fairly academic book. I do feel like I'd want a bit more academic context though and whether the theories put forward are well accepted or highly controversial, because I feel like I've come away with no idea.

WEIRD = Western Educated

The WEIRD concept is quite well known in psychology and other social studies.

Hendrich tries to show the history and development of WEIRD bias by focussing on the history of christian influence in central Europe and the devolpment of alphabetisation.
Citing many of (his) studies in great detail, he proves his point.

Nevertheless, i couldn't get rid of the feeling, that the data not really give evidence to his argument, therefor he focusses on a few studies in great, great detail - not really mentioning other studies. (But I lack enough insight to prove this point - it is just my feeling during reading).

Two other points i was confused about.
Henrich points out the role of inter-clan marriages and patrilineal inheritance. But he does not discuss or even consider of contemporary feministic research and results upon the role of women, marriage, etc. in history. Just as if these kind of studies do not exist or do not add any insight into male view of history.
The second point is the focus on religion: even though he explains why he looks upon monotheistic religions mainly, he sticks to christianity and a bit islam. He almost nowhere discusses the role of jewish influence and tradition .. even though he is doing historic research. This is very surprising and does not make much sense.

All in all it is interesting research which many points to discuss. It would be good for the book to be much shorter and to the point (at least push lots of the statistical details and scattergrams to the appendix)

Fascinating idea of how what we do changes how we think and changing how we think changes the course of history.

If you are reading this review, you are probably from a WEIRD culture – Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic. Your psychology differs significantly from the mindset of traditional societies and, to a lesser extent, wealthy contemporary Asian societies. In ways consistent with this psychology, your society’s social, economic and political institutions are also very unusual in human history.

As a general observation this is not novel. In an early chapter of The Weirdest People in the World, Joseph Henrich acknowledges the cross-cultural psychology work of Harry Triandis and Geert Hofstede. Decades ago their surveys mapped attitudes and beliefs across countries on an individualism (Western) versus collectivism (the rest) scale.

The Weirdest People's contribution is an ambitious bringing together of history, anthropology, evolutionary theory, theology, sociology, economics, political science and a bit of biology to explain how WEIRD psychology developed.

As with any history of the West Christianity is central. Christianity replaced tribal gods with a universal god that rewarded or punished certain behaviours. The old tribal gods often weren’t particularly moral. According to Henrich, ‘they could be bribed, tricked, or scared off with powerful rituals’. The Christian god’s judgment was not so easily avoided. For Christians, whether they went to heaven depended on how they behaved while they were alive. By setting the rules for going to heaven, the Catholic Church could shape the actions of believers.

A significant use of Church power, on Henrich’s account, was what he calls the Catholic ‘marriage and family program’. From around 400 CE this program began dismantling the intensive kin-based institutions of traditional societies.

The arranged marriage is an instrument of kin control. Under Catholic rules, however, the bride and groom both had to publicly consent to marriage. While this did not directly prohibit arranged marriages, it shifted power from the family to the individual. Eventually love marriages became the norm. Newly married couples were encouraged to live independently together, rather than remain in extended households, creating the nuclear family.

Choice of spouse did not extend to relatives. The Church banned cousin marriage. According to Henrich, only a quarter of global-historical societies have forbidden cousin marriage. Across the world about one in ten marriages today is to a close relative. Rules against cousin marriage extended spouse searches outside local communities, creating wider social connections than are usual in tribal societies.

Under Catholic rules, only monogamous marriages were permitted, a restriction that Henrich says has applied in only 15 per cent of global-historical societies. Monogamy reduced male-to-male competition and violence by minimising the number of low-status males with few prospects for sex or marriage. It seems to generate ‘WEIRD endocrinology’, as men with one wife and children have lower testosterone levels, and with that a lower propensity to take risks, drink, gamble, or get arrested.

Of course people did not always follow the marriage and family program, and the Catholic sale of ‘indulgences’ to absolve their sins was one trigger for the 16th century Protestant Reformation. But the Reformation’s greater significance was creating personal relationships between believers and God. As many other books have also documented, this was very important to the rise of Western individualism. Once people can decide on their own religious beliefs they start to think the same way about other things.

The weakening of kin ties and the rise of individualism created space for new forms of social organisation, ‘voluntary associations based on shared interests or beliefs rather than tribal affiliation’. Among the early examples were church-linked mutual aid societies that performed some of the welfare functions of extended families, universities, and guilds of tradesmen.

These organisations were supported by an increased division of labour, with more people specialising in clusters of tasks that turn into occupations. In traditional societies most people are generalists. Higher productivity from task specialisation has long been noted, but Henrich argues that specialisation also contributes to more distinct personalities – a ‘sociable salesman, conscientious craftsman, scrupulous scribe, or pious priest’. He suggests that people increasingly select occupations that fit their temperaments and attributes, and then hone those attributes in competition with others.

An implication of this is that the big-5 distinct dimensions of personality – openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism – are really the WEIRD-5. Henrich reports that studies in Hong Kong and Japan find four rather than five distinct personality dimensions; even that may over-estimate the number due to WEIRD-biased samples of university students. In a Bolivian traditional farmer-forager society only two personality dimensions were found.

The effects of markets on personality and social connection have long been debated. To communitarian critics markets foster selfishness and weaken social ties. But Enlightenment intellectuals, living in an era of expanding markets, advanced the seemingly contradictory thesis that markets increase civility and cooperation. Henrich thinks that they both have a point but are talking about different things.

Markets are in the mix of institutions and attitudes that led to WEIRD culture. The more needs people meet through trade the less they rely on their tribe or family (reduced ‘community’). In traditional societies needs are met through strong obligations within the tribe or extended family. In market societies these obligations are typically weak outside the parent-child relationship.

By the 14th century in England, most people lived within a two hour walk of about 1200 weekly markets where people could buy and sell goods. Trades are often with strangers or people outside tight tribal or family networks, making an individual reputation for fairness and honesty valuable in a market society.

Henrich reports on anonymous ‘ultimatum games’ played in different countries. A person is given a sum of money and has to offer part of it to another person. If the other person refuses the offer both parties get nothing. In WEIRD cultures, the average offer is 48 per cent of the money at stake and offers of less than 40 per cent are often rejected. In traditional societies the average offer is around a quarter of the money and few offers are rejected. WEIRD players know the norm of fairness and either observe it or enforce it. WEIRD culture permits the pursuit of individual self-interest, but it is constrained by stronger norms about relations with strangers than are found in traditional societies.

Market societies are strong on what Henrich calls ‘impersonal pro-sociality’, where trust between strangers supports cooperation in markets and within organisations. Tribal societies are strong on ‘interpersonal pro-sociality’. Their norms require more sharing within the tribe than in market societies but limit cooperation with outsiders.

The Weirdest People in the World is a very interesting and stimulating book. It is so wide-ranging that only a polymath could judge the overall argument. Whether or not its historical explanation of WEIRD culture is entirely right it usefully reminds WEIRD people that what they think is normal is, as the book’s title suggests, weird.