the final point that i want to look at from the woodley & bell paper on consanguinity and democracy is their finding that pathogen load affects consanguinity (which, in turn, affects democracy) in societies. before i do that, though, i want to back up and look at pathogens and culture.
in 2008, fincher, et al., published their findings [opens pdf] of an apparent relationship between individualistic vs. collectivist societies and pathogen load. generally, the more pathogens in your environment, the more collectivist — ethnocentric, conforming — you’re gonna be since limiting your interactions with strangers will help to reduce your chances of catching some lethal disease. and vice versa.
i like it! (^_^)
here’s a nice little chart from the paper showing the correlation between individualism (taken from hofstede 2001) and historical pathogen prevelance (the authors explain how they came up with their pathogen index on pgs. 1280-81):
two of the et al. guys, murray and schaller, expanded the historic pathogen index in a paper published in 2010 [opens pdf]. the index (or, rather, indices ’cause there’s two of them) sums up the historic disease prevalence for 230 nations or geopolitical regions. they offer (pg. 102) a nice table summarizing several different studies which found correlations between pathogen load and things like individualism vs. collectivism, extraversion, openness and democratization (click on chart for LARGER view):
again, in general, the more pathogens, the more cultural/behavioral “restrictions.” (but the spicier the food! mmmmm!)
more on all this anon!
previously: consanguinity and democracy and consanguinity and islam and democracy
(note: comments do not require an email. hi there!)
There was a recent paper showing a link between individualism/collectivism and certain genetic variants. The paper controlled for pathogen prevalence, but it was a significant predictor. There were also effects of other cultural measures such as masculinity/femininity: http://replicatedtypo.com/genetic-components-and-cultural-differences-the-social-sensitivity-hypothesis/1620.html
See also Chiao & Blizinsky (2009) http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2009/10/27/rspb.2009.1650.full
I’ve also suggested that migration patterns are connected (http://replicatedtypo.com/the-social-sensitivity-hypothesis/2209.html), and of course, pathogen prevalence is linked to climate (and another analysis I did suggests that water availability is linked in, too). There’s a story here, but it’s quite complex!
curiouser and curiouser
There’s also a v. interesting apparent correlation between pathogen load and linguistic diversity. I think part of the theory is that language is a good way to wall off strangers and freeloaders in difficult environments. Can’t find a good link in the time I have available, but see e.g.:
But linguistic diversity cannot be fully explained by anti-pathogen defense. There are many examples of groups that have developed linguistic distinctiveness…
Google book result
(Said book is also full of P.C. linguistics.)
But these things correlate with economic development, latitude, and probably a bunch of other stuff in addition to inbreeding. It’s hard to say where the causal links lay.
@ hbd chick So at the end of the day it’s all germs. They enforce exclusiveness, which results in social effects that drive history or else they don’t. I would have thought that except for recent times germs were everywhere in enormous numbers. Sort of humbling, I think.
@g.w. – “curiouser and curiouser”
indeed!
@mary – “There’s also a v. interesting apparent correlation between pathogen load and linguistic diversity. I think part of the theory is that language is a good way to wall off strangers and freeloaders in difficult environments.”
i think i’ve read something along those lines somewhere, too, but i don’t remember where. and i forgot all about it, so thanks for bringing it up!
“But linguistic diversity cannot be fully explained by anti-pathogen defense. There are many examples of groups that have developed linguistic distinctiveness…”
interesting.
@luke – “But these things correlate with economic development, latitude, and probably a bunch of other stuff in addition to inbreeding. It’s hard to say where the causal links lay.”
sure. however, woodley & bell found in their path analyses (however the h*ll that works) that the pathogen index was pretty durned important in influencing consanguinity levels (which, in turn, affected democracy in a nation) — more so than things like economic freedom.
@linton – “So at the end of the day it’s all germs.”
yeah! at the end of the day, it might all be down to germs. (^_^) even the reason for why we reproduce sexually!
@linton – “Sort of humbling, I think.”
yup! (^_^)
@sean – “I’ve also suggested that migration patterns are connected….”
from that post:
“If genetic differences make a person less reliant on social networks, they may be more likely to migrate. This would predict that areas settled later in human history will have more ‘non socially sensitive’ individuals.”
very neat idea! i like it.
@sean – “There’s a story here, but it’s quite complex!”
absolutely!
thanks for the links. (^_^)
“i think i’ve read something along those lines somewhere, too, but i don’t remember where.”
I remember something like that related to Papua New Guinea.
Fascinating data, HBD.
I have always assumed that most pathogens function similarly to predation, reducing population below the carrying capacity of the environment, and reducing competition-related selection pressures. That would favor a more r-strategy, producing a psychology that was less competitive, less confrontational, less aggressive and less individualistic/competitive. But this does point to something slightly different, especially with respect to disgust.
Conservatives are high in disgust, and individualism, while Liberals are low individualism/ low disgust. This made sense because if you are r, and averse to competition (the natural outgrowth of individualism), and resources are growing scarce as things turn K, you can avoid competition by eating things others might not eat, to exploit an untapped resource stream. Here, though disease produces low individualism, high disgust.
The big mystery to me has always been Libertarianism, because it is what my emotions are really driven to, but I don’t see it fitting nicely into r/K. Oddly enough, low individualism/high disgust is the exact opposite of how I am programmed to feel, and it doesn’t fit into r/K nicely either. I suspect most Libertarians are like me, with high individualism/ low disgust. Could that mean that after emerging due to inbreeding effects, Libertarianism can also function as a strategy for a high competition/low disease environment?
It might also pay to consider that there may also be differences among pathogens, and within environments, which may skew stuff in individual cases. For example the Black Death, Yersinia pestis, preferentially killed the malnourished, during a time when resources were diminished, due to the end of the Medieval Warm Period suddenly reducing crop output. Since it favored those who competitively acquired the most resources, it basically made competitive failure to acquire food much more lethal than it would have been otherwise. This would have probably favored high individualism and high disgust.
You really get some interesting stuff on the rich evolutionary soup we were cooked up in.
@anonymous conservative – “Here, though disease produces low individualism, high disgust.”
yes. well the “missing link” here between pathogen load and the r/K stuff is, i think, mating patterns, which comes out in the woodley & bell paper i referenced.
lots of pathogens leads people to inbreed which results in, i think, low individualism/high collectivism. that’s my little idea related to life history that i think people have missed — that inbreeding makes people less individualistic. literally.
@anonymous conservative – “…the rich evolutionary soup we were cooked up in.”
rich evolutionary soup! i like that! (^_^)
i really have to get off this iq business i got caught up in over the last week and get back to business. i am soooo not interested in the iq question (even though i know it’s very important hbd-wise)! there’s more to hbd than iq.