Kirby s et al (2016) d-place: a global database of cultural, linguistic and environmental diversity12/28/2022 Evolutionary game theory models and behavioral data suggest that cultural tightness emerges following threat because it curbs defection and increases coordination. During warfare, disease outbreaks, or resource scarcity, societies are faced with increased coordination pressures across diverse populations of unrelated individuals. According to past research, cultures tighten in the face of ecological threat. We define ecological threats as factors from the social or natural environment, broadly defined, that threaten societies’ existence. Here, we outline a broad research program examining whether cross-cultural variability in prejudice is linked to cultural tightness-the strength of a society’s norms and the strictness of its punishments for deviant behavior-and more distally, to the ecological threats that drive tightness. What environmental and cultural factors underlie this cross-cultural variation in prejudice? And could these same factors explain the rise of nationalist politicians?Įcological threat, cultural tightness, and variation in prejudice ![]() Historical indicators of prejudice such as interhousehold sharing and parochial cooperation also show considerable variation across cultures. This cross-cultural covariation is not a contemporary phenomenon. Racial hate crimes, religious violence, intolerance for non-traditional sexual practices, and many other forms of intergroup prejudice vary widely around the world. This lack of quantitative cross-cultural research partly stems from the fact that most social science studies recruit subjects from the United States and other western, democratic, and highly educated nations, leaving prejudice’s tremendous geographic and historic variability largely unexplored. Laboratory studies have examined the individual-level cognitive mechanisms behind racial, religious, ethnic, and linguistic prejudice, and qualitative studies have examined prejudice within single nations or during critical periods of history, but few studies have quantitatively examined cross-cultural variation in prejudice using ecological variables (for exceptions, see ). These geopolitical events expose a troubling lack of research on cultural variation in prejudice and nationalism. This escalation of nationalism puzzles academics and policy-makers alike, prompting open questions about the cultural and societal factors that predict prejudice and nationalism. That same year in Europe, support for populist parties and distrust of ethnic minorities and immigrants rose to a 30-year high, resulting in the election of nationalist leaders in Poland and the Czech Republic and potentially contributing to the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union. In the United States, Donald Trump was elected president in 2016 and has since drafted laws aimed at more aggressive deportation and the construction of a border wall. Recent years have seen a rise of nationalist political parties and policies in many Western nations. These findings offer a cultural evolutionary perspective on prejudice, with implications for immigration, intercultural conflict, and radicalization. Results replicate when controlling for economic development, inequality, conservatism, residential mobility, and shared cultural heritage. ![]() ![]() People’s support for cultural tightness also mediates the link between perceived ecological threat and intentions to vote for nationalist politicians. A set of seven archival analyses, surveys, and experiments (∑ N = 3,986,402) find that nations, American states, and pre-industrial societies with tighter cultural norms show the most prejudice based on skin color, religion, nationality, and sexuality, and that tightness predicts why prejudice is often highest in areas of the world with histories of ecological threat. We suggest that cultures grow more prejudiced when they tighten cultural norms in response to destabilizing ecological threats. Here we examine the ecological and cultural factors underlying the worldwide distribution of prejudice. Prejudiced attitudes and political nationalism vary widely around the world, but there has been little research on what predicts this variation.
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