Thursday, April 3, 2014

Guest presenter: Thomas Talhelm

Fifth-year doctoral student, cross-cultural psychology, University of Virginia

Abstract:The Rice Theory of Culture: Evidence for Large-Scale Psychological Differences between Northern and Southern China”

Many studies in cross-cultural psychology seem to implicitly assumed that East Asia is a single culture. However, my data shows differences within China almost as large as differences between East and West. I offer the theory that a history of rice farming has made southern Chinese culture more interdependent and focused on tight, reciprocal relationships. I gave psychological measures to 1,074 Han Chinese participants in seven sites and found that people from rice-growing southern China have more interdependent self-concepts and a more holistic cultural thought style than Han Chinese from the wheat-growing north. Differences were just as large between neighboring counties along the Yangtze River, which divides the rice and wheat regions. The results are in stark contrast to the popular modernization theory of culture, which would predict individualism in the most developed areas. In sum, Han China seems to have two distinct northern and southern psychological cultures that fall along the borders of traditional rice and wheat agriculture.

Bio:Thomas Talhelm is a 2012-2013 Fulbright scholar to China and a PhD Candidate in social psychology at the University of Virginia. He graduated from Michigan in 2007. He researches cross-cultural differences and north-south cultural differences in China. He has lived in China (both north and south) for four years doing research, as a Princeton in Asia fellow, and as a freelance journalist.