Do Asians Have 'Arctic Instincts'? Exploring The New Theory

Join us in this engaging discussion as we dive deep into the article 'Arctic Instincts' by David's Sun, focusing on how genetics and cultural psychology explain the unique adaptations of East Asians to their local environments. We explore the intriguing concepts of collectivism, population density, individualism, and high agency, and how these traits have evolved over millennia. The conversation also touches upon the environmental pressures faced by different populations, the controversial nature of studying cultural genetic differences, and practical implications for contemporary society. Whether you're interested in cultural psychology, genetic evolution, or just curious about human behavior, this episode offers a captivating exploration of the forces that shape who we are.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I'm excited to be with you today.

Today we are going to be Stu going over an article called Arctic Instincts by David's Sun, which covers how Asians adapted to their local climate, or some of Asians did. Okay.

Simone Collins: Most

Malcolm Collins: in terms of psychologically and in terms of other capacities, it's a spicy article. The guy who wrote it is Asian, so I don't know, I guess that can.

He gets a free pass. Well, you know, he was interested in studying, like, why are his people different from other people? Like because, and, and specifically in the context of why are they different from other people in ways that Native Americans are also different from other people because they're closely related genetic groups.

Yeah. Though of

Simone Collins: course, employee differences on its own is. Terribly dangerous. So I, I get the

Malcolm Collins: controversy. Any, the paper has this big part at the beginning, which I'm, I'm taking out where he's explaining that, you know, he's been in academia for a while and he's been working on this for a while and he hasn't been able to publish it 'cause he is afraid of losing his job.

But now we're in, you know, the new [00:01:00] era, blah, blah, blah. And so as in aporia obviously great paper. So let's, let's go for it.

Simone Collins: All right.

Malcolm Collins: My paper falls within the discipline of cultural psychology, which seeks to understand people's culture and personality by examining the socioecological factors that they experienced over the past 10,000 years.

Many interesting findings have already been made as recent literature review documents. Population density predicts collectivism, tightness, and future orientation, and frontier regions are characterized by individualism in high agency. So there just let's unpack every one of those. If, if historically over the past 10 years an area was really, he heavily populated.

Yeah. It is going to be more collectivistic and people who are are from that like genetic population are gonna be more collectivistic. Yeah. They would've of course, succeeded at a higher rate, was in a dense area. If there, so what regions would that be? Just, you know, off the top of your head, you're probably thinking India.

China. And then he is like, okay. And then you have the frontier regions, which are more associated [00:02:00] with individualism and high agency. What are the, like the biggest frontier area is obviously going to be the American West. Oh, I was thinking like

Simone Collins: Mongolia, but Sure. I mean, I think like Asian populations have seen a lot of both, which

Malcolm Collins: is interesting.

Simone Collins: But Go

Malcolm Collins: ahead. Yeah. Well. No, Mongolia wouldn't really be a, I mean, I can look at the way the paper looks at it, but if you're looking at selective pressures, the frontier regions that are opt-in frontier regions rather than frontier regions you're just born into, are gonna have a much higher genetic effect.

Because I. If you, if you talk about the American West, the reason why it's selected for individualism and agency at such a high level mm-hmm. Is first to immigrate to the United States. To begin with the population group, you have to have very high levels of you know, agency. It's a very big decision.

It's a very risky decision. And then these regions sorted for people who immigrated over and then likely in multiple waves over multiple generations kept moving. Further west like, okay, well we're in Boston now, but I don't like this. It's still [00:03:00] too civilization. Let's go. Hey, too many people. Let's go to the, the mountains of, of the Appalachians.

Okay? Okay. I like it here. Oh, no, too many people are coming. Let's go further. Let's go all the way to Texas. Let's go all the way out to, you know, so, it makes sense. And it also makes sense why that would give these regions some economic advantage over sort of global economies because agency, and there was one thing that you really pointed out to me recently, which is if you're talking about social status in the existing system like global system the, the one that we're entering into at least, it, it, it just seems to be a combination of IQ and agency.

Huh in being age agentic. And that, that's why it's so important because you can't influence your kids' IQ that much, but you can, I believe, influence their level of agency

Simone Collins: 100%. Though I'm sure there are genetic components there as well.

Malcolm Collins: No, I mean, well, this, this is documenting that there's genetic components and so what selects for them?

I don't know. Tightness and future orientation is interesting that that's what you get in terms of heavily dense areas. Yeah. I don't, what does tightness tightness mean in this context? [00:04:00] Yeah,

Simone Collins: tightness. Rigidity, maybe the, the closeness of social relations, how internet a society is

Malcolm Collins: All right. So, tightness refers to the degree to which a society has strict social norms. Oh, tolerance for deviation and behavior. Oh. In a tight culture there are strong social norms and literal tolerance for behavior that deviates from these norms. Rules tend to be clearly defined in strictly enforced.

The greater emphasis on conformity and social order punishment for violating norms is typically more severe. So these are in areas that are more populated. Makes sense that you would need stronger social cohesion in a place that's more populated. Yeah. And you have more diversity in a place that's less populated.

Future orientation refers to the extent of cultural emphasizes planning for the future rather than focusing on immediate outcomes. High future orientation involves delaying gratification, prioritizing long-term planning and investment, emphasizing saving rather than immediate consumption, and valuing preparation and prevention.

Interesting, interesting. So let's keep [00:05:00] going here. Oh, by the way, the paper that he was read for thing, if anyone wants to look it up, is a sociological genetic framework of culture, personality, their roots, trends, and interplay. And then he's saying frontier regions also have high pathogen prevalence predicts.

Oh, sorry. And that then pathogen prevalence in a region over the past 10,000 years predicts collectivism rice farming and is associated with tightness and higher nepotism.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Very interesting. You had higher nepotism in those regions. I suspect it's also highly pathogen prevalence would be highly tied to population as well, so it's probably also tied to the high population regions.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that makes sens