Why Are WEIRD Studies Problematic?: Particularly Thin, and Rather Unusual, Slice of Humanity
Why Are WEIRD Studies Problematic?: Particularly Thin, and Rather Unusual, Slice of Humanity
Why Are WEIRD Studies Problematic?: Particularly Thin, and Rather Unusual, Slice of Humanity
there is substantial variability in experimental results (The domains reviewed include de facto
psychological universals: visual perception, fairness, cooperation, spatial reasoning, categorization and
inferential induction, moral reasoning, reasoning styles, self-concepts and related motivations, and the
heritability of IQ) across populations
there are no obvious a priori grounds for claiming that a particular behavioral phenomenon is
universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation
WEIRD subjects are particularly unusual compared with the rest of the species – frequent outliers
members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least representative
populations one could find for generalizing about humans
Why are WEIRD (particularly thin, and rather unusual, slice of humanity) studies problematic?
there is substantial variability in experimental results (The domains reviewed include de facto
psychological universals: visual perception, fairness, cooperation, spatial reasoning, categorization and
inferential induction, moral reasoning, reasoning styles, self-concepts and related motivations, and the
heritability of IQ) across populations
there are no obvious a priori grounds for claiming that a particular behavioral phenomenon is
universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation
WEIRD subjects are particularly unusual compared with the rest of the species – frequent outliers
members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least representative
populations one could find for generalizing about humans
Why are WEIRD (particularly thin, and rather unusual, slice of humanity) studies problematic?
there is substantial variability in experimental results (The domains reviewed include de facto
psychological universals: visual perception, fairness, cooperation, spatial reasoning, categorization and
inferential induction, moral reasoning, reasoning styles, self-concepts and related motivations, and the
heritability of IQ) across populations
there are no obvious a priori grounds for claiming that a particular behavioral phenomenon is
universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation
WEIRD subjects are particularly unusual compared with the rest of the species – frequent outliers
members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least representative
populations one could find for generalizing about humans