Michele Gelfand: belief

Transcript context

…Your own work aside, what would be a few generalizations about culture that you think we’ve learned empirically and follow from theory that you more or less agree with or believe in? I would say that we’ve learned that culture is not random, that it evolves for semi-adaptive reasons, given the kinds of environments that people place. That doesn’t mean all cultural traits, values, norms have been adapted, but many are. People don’t realize that cultures are not just accidental, that there’s some rationale to cultural differences. Actually, once we realize that and we can start to document that, I think it produces a lot more empathy. When you’re traveling, when you’re learning about other cultures, when you start to think, wait, if I lived in that context, whether it’s the US South, or whether it’s in Sri Lanka, or wherever it is, or Japan, that you also would likely support the norms and values that are being cultivated if they were helpful for your survival. So I tend to think about cultures being quasi-rational. How bad is the replication crisis in social psychology? It relates not so much to your work, but it’s become a big issue. What’s your view?…

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