I have often said that what we really know about psychology is what we actually know about psychology students. These tend to be the subjects of research studies and they tend to be very WEIRD. This stands for White, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic. WEIRDs have a very particular view of the world, and although they are by far the global minority, they dominate the media, academia and political life. Here the impose and assume that all others see the world as they do, or would if they had the chance.

Whilst I have written about the nature of the WEIRD before (click here) there was a very interesting study on the origins of the WEIRD world view. Jonathan F. Schulz and a team have tracked the evolution of WEIRD culture through medieval Europe and their study casts interesting insight into the nature and origin of the WEIRD mindset. To read the full research study, click here.