Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-42gr6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T02:13:44.140Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Frontier migration fosters ethos of independence: Deconstructing the climato-economic theory of human culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 August 2013

Stephanie de Oliveira Chen  and
Shinobu Kitayama
Stephanie de Oliveira Chen
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109. sdeochen@umich.edukitayama@umich.eduhttp://culturalneuroscience.isr.umich.edu
Shinobu Kitayama
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109. sdeochen@umich.edukitayama@umich.eduhttp://culturalneuroscience.isr.umich.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Evidence Van de Vliert draws on is more consistent with the idea that settlement in the frontier encourages independent mentality and individualistic social institutions. This cultural system can sometimes flourish, generating both wealth and power, but clearly not always. In our view, wealth is, for the most part, a measure of success of any given cultural group, and climate is important to the extent that it plays a role in creating rugged lands of frontier.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 36 , Issue 5 , October 2013 , pp. 486 - 487
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Diamond, J. M. (1997) Guns, germs, and steel. W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Kennedy, P. (1989) The rise and fall of the great powers. Vintage.Google Scholar
Kitayama, S. (2002) Culture and basic psychological processes – toward a system view of culture: Comment on Oyserman et al. (2002) Psychological Bulletin 128(1):89–96. DOI:10.1037/0033-2909.128.1.89.Google Scholar
Kitayama, S., Conway, L. G., Pietromonaco, P. R., Park, H. & Plaut, V. C. (2010) Ethos of independence across regions in the United States: The production-adoption model of cultural change. American Psychologist 65(6):559–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kitayama, S., Ishii, K., Imada, T., Takemura, K. & Ramaswamy, J. (2006) Voluntary settlement and the spirit of independence: Evidence from Japan's “northern frontier.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 91(3):369–84. DOI:10.1037/0022-3514.91.3.369.Google Scholar
Talhelm, T., Zhang, X., Oishi, S., Shimin, C., Duan, D., Lan, X. & Kitayama, S. (2012) Discovery of large-scale psychological differences within China explained by rice vs. wheat agriculture. Unpublished manuscript, University of Virginia.Google Scholar
Uskul, A. K., Kitayama, S. & Nisbett, R. E. (2008) Ecocultural basis of cognition: Farmers and fishermen are more holistic than herders. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105(25):8552–56. DOI:10.1073/pnas.0803874105.Google Scholar
Vandello, J. A. & Cohen, D. (1999) Patterns of individualism and collectivism across the United States. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77(2):279–92. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.77.2.279.Google Scholar