Wednesday, February 27, 2008

More pathogens means more collectivism?   posted by Razib @ 2/27/2008 07:07:00 PM
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Pathogen prevalence predicts human cross-cultural variability in individualism/collectivism (Open Access):
...We suggest that specific behavioural manifestations of collectivism (e.g. ethnocentrism, conformity) can inhibit the transmission of pathogens; and so we hypothesize that collectivism (compared with individualism) will more often characterize cultures in regions that have historically had higher prevalence of pathogens. Drawing on epidemiological data and the findings of worldwide cross-national surveys of individualism/collectivism, our results support this hypothesis: the regional prevalence of pathogens has a strong positive correlation with cultural indicators of collectivism and a strong negative correlation with individualism. The correlations remain significant even when controlling for potential confounding variables. These results help to explain the origin of a paradigmatic cross-cultural difference, and reveal previously undocumented consequences of pathogenic diseases on the variable nature of human societies.


The, r = -0.69 at p-value 0.001 and n = 68. You can find the raw data here. It would be cool to see trends within nations/societies. For example, variation in altitude.

Related: Toxoplasma gondii & human culture.

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