Thomas Talhelm
Biographic Data
| ID | 1833350 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Thomas Talhelm |
| GIVEN NAMES | Thomas |
| FAMILY NAME | Talhelm |
| SIGNATURE | TALHELM T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Chicago |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0954-5758 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 37 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 31 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Adapting Interventions to Culture Can Improve Effectiveness and Cost-Efficiency
The last few decades have seen ambitious new mega-studies testing ways to change people's behavior for good. Studies with thousands of participants have tested the effectiveness of financial incentives and psychological nudges to encourage people to get vaccinated, go to the gym, and work harder. The emerging theme across these studies is that money tends to work better than nudges. Yet most of this research has been done in Western cultures. Thi…
Not That Important Why You Did It
People in interdependent cultures explain others’ behavior less through internal traits and more through external situations than those in independent cultures. Criminal justice research suggests that this should make people more lenient. They should blame less, punish less, support rehabilitation more, and perceive offenders to have less risk to re-offend. Yet, studies across cultures contradict this theoretical prediction. We address this contr…
Artificial Intelligence Versus Human Fundraisers
Artificial intelligence (AI) is shaping charitable donations more and more. That means traditional theories about human fundraisers might not apply when AI is involved. In charitable storytelling, fundraisers use first-person or third-person narrative perspectives to convey their messages. Different narratives have varying effects on audiences’ donation intentions, yet the most suitable narrative perspective for AI fundraisers remains unexplored.…
People in Tight Cultures and Tight Situations Wear Masks More
Studies have found large differences in masks use during the pandemic. We found evidence that cultural tightness explains mask use differences and this association was more robust in tight situations like subways. In Study 1, we observed 23,551 people’s actual mask use in public places around China. People wore masks more in tight situations; however, differences did not extend to outdoor streets and public parks, where norms are looser. We repli…
Moving to wheat‐farming regions increases analytic thought, but moving to cities does not
Does moving to a new environment change people's cultural thought style? We tracked the cultural thought style of 1462 university students at 18 sites over time after they moved across China for college. We tested their holistic thought, which is more common in interdependent cultures. One logical prediction is that students would think less holistically after moving to big cities and more economically developed areas, in line with modernization …
Understanding perceived Covid-19 changes, collectivism, and social exclusion
New evidence finds young people in Mainland China are now bicultural
This study reports new evidence that young people in Mainland China are now bicultural. We followed the established method of testing biculturalism by priming participants with images from two different cultures and measuring whether those images activate different thought styles. First, we replicated findings from 25 years ago that college students in Hong Kong are bicultural (Study 1). Next, we found that priming Mainland Chinese college studen…
Historical patterns of rice farming explain modern-day language use in China and Japan more than modernization and urbanization
We used natural language processing to analyze a billion words to study cultural differences on Weibo, one of China’s largest social media platforms. We compared predictions from two common explanations about cultural differences in China (economic development and urban-rural differences) against the less-obvious legacy of rice versus wheat farming. Rice farmers had to coordinate shared irrigation networks and exchange labor to cope with higher l…
When Interdependence Backfires
Interdependent cultures around the world have generally controlled COVID-19 better. We tested this pattern in China based on the rice theory, which argues that historically rice-farming regions of China are more interdependent than wheat-farming areas. Unlike earlier findings, rice-farming areas suffered more COVID-19 cases in the early days of the outbreak. We suspected this happened because the outbreak fell on Chinese New Year, and people in r…
People in relationally mobile cultures report higher well-being
In cultures with high relational mobility, relationships are free and flexible. People can make new friends easily, and they have the freedom to leave unsatisfying relationships. In cultures with low relational mobility, relationships are more fixed, and people have less freedom to leave relationships. We argue that people experience higher well-being if they have the freedom to exit toxic relationships and find new partners easily. In Study 1, w…
The ongoing impact
Beyond perceived risk
The motivating effect of monetary over psychological incentives is stronger in Weird cultures
Motivating effortful behaviour is a problem employers, governments and nonprofits face globally. However, most studies on motivation are done in Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic (WEIRD) cultures. We compared how hard people in six countries worked in response to monetary incentives versus psychological motivators, such as competing with or helping others. The advantage money had over psychological interventions was larger in…
Holistic thinkers process divided-attention tasks faster
How Rice Fights Pandemics
Wealthy nations led health preparedness rankings in 2019, yet many poor nations controlled COVID-19 better. We argue that a history of rice farming explains why some societies did better. We outline how traditional rice farming led to tight social norms and low-mobility social networks. These social structures helped coordinate societies against COVID-19. Study 1 compares rice- and wheat-farming prefectures within China. Comparing within China al…
Asian Men and Black Women Hold Weaker Race–Gender Associations
Prior work finds a consistent association between race and gender: People associate Asian with female and Black with male. We used mouse-tracking to examine whether different U.S. racial/ethnic groups hold this same association (Study 1) and compared Asian-American participants to ethnically Chinese participants in China (Study 2). In Study 1, White and Hispanic participants showed the expected “race is gendered” effect, and the strength of the e…
Insights into the accuracy of social scientists' forecasts of societal change
Family still matters
The Rice Theory of Culture
The rice theory of culture is the idea that rice farming societies developed into more interdependent, tight cultures in response to the demands of the plant. Farming in general is an interdependent subsistence style, but traditional paddy rice farming was starkly different from other major crops like wheat, corn, and potatoes. Paddy rice required twice as much labor per hectare as wheat farming. Farmers responded by creating customs to share lab…
People in historically rice-farming areas are less happy and socially compare more than people in wheat-farming areas
Using two nationally representative surveys, we find that people in China's historically rice-farming areas are less happy than people in wheat areas. This is a puzzle because the rice area is more interdependent, and relationships are an important predictor of happiness. We explore how the interdependence of historical rice farming may have paradoxically undermined happiness by creating more social comparison than wheat farming. We build a frame…
How do humans group non‐rigid objects in multiple object tracking
Previous studies on perceptual grouping found that people can use spatiotemporal and featural information to group spatially separated rigid objects into a unit while tracking moving objects. However, few studies have tested the role of objects’ self‐motion information in perceptual grouping, although it is of great significance to the motion perception in the three‐dimensional space. In natural environments, objects always move in translation an…
High‐status people are more individualistic and analytic‐thinking in the west and wheat‐farming areas, but not rice‐farming areas
Previous studies have found that high‐status people are more individualistic and think more analytically than people of lower social status. We find new evidence that this is not always the case. We tested a large sample ( N = 1,418) of people across China on analytic thought and the friend–stranger distinction. In China's more individualistic wheat‐farming regions, social status patterns replicated findings from the West: high‐status people thou…
Historically rice-farming societies have tighter social norms in China and worldwide
Significance Rice is a highly interdependent crop. Rice required far more labor than dryland crops like wheat, and rice’s irrigation networks forced farmers to coordinate water use. To deal with these demands, rice villages developed strong norms for labor exchange. Using China as a natural test case, we compare nearby provinces that differ in rice and wheat, but share the same ethnicity, religion, and national government. In survey data from ove…
Teens in Rice County Are More Interdependent and Think More Holistically Than Nearby Wheat County
China’s smallest province Ningxia sits in North Central China. Surrounded by herding cultures to the north and wheat farmers to the south, Qingtongxia is a small outpost of rice farming fed by the Yellow River. We test the hypothesis that rice-farming cultures are more interdependent by comparing high school students from Qingtongxia ( N = 190) to students in a nearby wheat district, Yuanzhou ( N = 223). Comparing two nearby counties provides a n…
Relational mobility predicts social behaviors in 39 countries and is tied to historical farming and threat
Significance Biologists and social scientists have long tried to understand why some societies have more fluid and open interpersonal relationships—differences in relational mobility—and how those differences influence individual behaviors. We measure relational mobility in 39 societies and find that relationships are more stable and hard to form in east Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East, while they are more fluid in the West and Latin Amer…
Residential mobility increases motivation to expand social network
Personality and geography
The motivating effect of monetary over psychological incentives is stronger in Weird cultures
Motivating effortful behaviour is a problem employers, governments and nonprofits face globally. However, most studies on motivation are done in Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic (WEIRD) cultures. We compared how hard people in six countries worked in response to monetary incentives versus psychological motivators, such as competing with or helping others. The advantage money had over psychological interventions was larger in…
Insights into the accuracy of social scientists' forecasts of societal change
Moving to wheat‐farming regions increases analytic thought, but moving to cities does not
Does moving to a new environment change people's cultural thought style? We tracked the cultural thought style of 1462 university students at 18 sites over time after they moved across China for college. We tested their holistic thought, which is more common in interdependent cultures. One logical prediction is that students would think less holistically after moving to big cities and more economically developed areas, in line with modernization …
New evidence finds young people in Mainland China are now bicultural
This study reports new evidence that young people in Mainland China are now bicultural. We followed the established method of testing biculturalism by priming participants with images from two different cultures and measuring whether those images activate different thought styles. First, we replicated findings from 25 years ago that college students in Hong Kong are bicultural (Study 1). Next, we found that priming Mainland Chinese college studen…
Beyond perceived risk
People in historically rice-farming areas are less happy and socially compare more than people in wheat-farming areas
Using two nationally representative surveys, we find that people in China's historically rice-farming areas are less happy than people in wheat areas. This is a puzzle because the rice area is more interdependent, and relationships are an important predictor of happiness. We explore how the interdependence of historical rice farming may have paradoxically undermined happiness by creating more social comparison than wheat farming. We build a frame…
High‐status people are more individualistic and analytic‐thinking in the west and wheat‐farming areas, but not rice‐farming areas
Previous studies have found that high‐status people are more individualistic and think more analytically than people of lower social status. We find new evidence that this is not always the case. We tested a large sample ( N = 1,418) of people across China on analytic thought and the friend–stranger distinction. In China's more individualistic wheat‐farming regions, social status patterns replicated findings from the West: high‐status people thou…
Residential mobility increases motivation to expand social network
Large-Scale Psychological Differences Within China Explained by Rice Versus Wheat Agriculture
Individualism Rules? On a diverse and large set of cognitive tests, subjects in East Asian countries are more inclined to display collectivist choices, whereas subjects in the United States are more inclined to score as individualists. Talhelm et al. (p. 603 ; see the Perspective by Henrich ) suggest that one historical source of influence was societal patterns of farming rice versus wheat, based on three cognitive measures of individualism and c…
Liberals Think More Analytically (More “Weird”) Than Conservatives
Henrich, Heine, and Norenzayan summarized cultural differences in psychology and argued that people from one particular culture are outliers: people from societies that are Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD). This study shows that liberals think WEIRDer than conservatives. In five studies with more than 5,000 participants, we found that liberals think more analytically (an element of WEIRD thought) than moderates and …
Personality and geography
Relational mobility predicts social behaviors in 39 countries and is tied to historical farming and threat
Significance Biologists and social scientists have long tried to understand why some societies have more fluid and open interpersonal relationships—differences in relational mobility—and how those differences influence individual behaviors. We measure relational mobility in 39 societies and find that relationships are more stable and hard to form in east Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East, while they are more fluid in the West and Latin Amer…
How Rice Farming Shaped Culture in Southern China
We present a detailed theory linking southern China’s history of rice farming to its modern-day culture. It explains how rice was farmed traditionally, what makes it different from other major staple crops, and why these differences could shape culture. Next, the chapter reviews empirical evidence that people who have grown up in the rice areas of China have different relationship styles and thought styles from people in the wheat areas. It also …
Who smiles while alone? Rates of smiling lower in China than U.S
Previous studies have found that Westerners value high intensity positive emotions more than people in China and Japan, yet few studies have compared actual rates of smiling across cultures. Particularly rare are observational studies of real-time smiling (as opposed to smiling in photos). In Study 1, raters coded student ID photos of European American and East Asian students in the U.S. In Study 2, observers coded people's smiles as they walked …
Teens in Rice County Are More Interdependent and Think More Holistically Than Nearby Wheat County
China’s smallest province Ningxia sits in North Central China. Surrounded by herding cultures to the north and wheat farmers to the south, Qingtongxia is a small outpost of rice farming fed by the Yellow River. We test the hypothesis that rice-farming cultures are more interdependent by comparing high school students from Qingtongxia ( N = 190) to students in a nearby wheat district, Yuanzhou ( N = 223). Comparing two nearby counties provides a n…
Historically rice-farming societies have tighter social norms in China and worldwide
Significance Rice is a highly interdependent crop. Rice required far more labor than dryland crops like wheat, and rice’s irrigation networks forced farmers to coordinate water use. To deal with these demands, rice villages developed strong norms for labor exchange. Using China as a natural test case, we compare nearby provinces that differ in rice and wheat, but share the same ethnicity, religion, and national government. In survey data from ove…
High‐status people are more individualistic and analytic‐thinking in the west and wheat‐farming areas, but not rice‐farming areas
Previous studies have found that high‐status people are more individualistic and think more analytically than people of lower social status. We find new evidence that this is not always the case. We tested a large sample ( N = 1,418) of people across China on analytic thought and the friend–stranger distinction. In China's more individualistic wheat‐farming regions, social status patterns replicated findings from the West: high‐status people thou…
Family still matters
The Rice Theory of Culture
The rice theory of culture is the idea that rice farming societies developed into more interdependent, tight cultures in response to the demands of the plant. Farming in general is an interdependent subsistence style, but traditional paddy rice farming was starkly different from other major crops like wheat, corn, and potatoes. Paddy rice required twice as much labor per hectare as wheat farming. Farmers responded by creating customs to share lab…
People in historically rice-farming areas are less happy and socially compare more than people in wheat-farming areas
Using two nationally representative surveys, we find that people in China's historically rice-farming areas are less happy than people in wheat areas. This is a puzzle because the rice area is more interdependent, and relationships are an important predictor of happiness. We explore how the interdependence of historical rice farming may have paradoxically undermined happiness by creating more social comparison than wheat farming. We build a frame…
How do humans group non‐rigid objects in multiple object tracking
Previous studies on perceptual grouping found that people can use spatiotemporal and featural information to group spatially separated rigid objects into a unit while tracking moving objects. However, few studies have tested the role of objects’ self‐motion information in perceptual grouping, although it is of great significance to the motion perception in the three‐dimensional space. In natural environments, objects always move in translation an…
Holistic thinkers process divided-attention tasks faster
How Rice Fights Pandemics
Wealthy nations led health preparedness rankings in 2019, yet many poor nations controlled COVID-19 better. We argue that a history of rice farming explains why some societies did better. We outline how traditional rice farming led to tight social norms and low-mobility social networks. These social structures helped coordinate societies against COVID-19. Study 1 compares rice- and wheat-farming prefectures within China. Comparing within China al…
Asian Men and Black Women Hold Weaker Race–Gender Associations
Prior work finds a consistent association between race and gender: People associate Asian with female and Black with male. We used mouse-tracking to examine whether different U.S. racial/ethnic groups hold this same association (Study 1) and compared Asian-American participants to ethnically Chinese participants in China (Study 2). In Study 1, White and Hispanic participants showed the expected “race is gendered” effect, and the strength of the e…
Insights into the accuracy of social scientists' forecasts of societal change
Historical patterns of rice farming explain modern-day language use in China and Japan more than modernization and urbanization
We used natural language processing to analyze a billion words to study cultural differences on Weibo, one of China’s largest social media platforms. We compared predictions from two common explanations about cultural differences in China (economic development and urban-rural differences) against the less-obvious legacy of rice versus wheat farming. Rice farmers had to coordinate shared irrigation networks and exchange labor to cope with higher l…
When Interdependence Backfires
Interdependent cultures around the world have generally controlled COVID-19 better. We tested this pattern in China based on the rice theory, which argues that historically rice-farming regions of China are more interdependent than wheat-farming areas. Unlike earlier findings, rice-farming areas suffered more COVID-19 cases in the early days of the outbreak. We suspected this happened because the outbreak fell on Chinese New Year, and people in r…
People in relationally mobile cultures report higher well-being
In cultures with high relational mobility, relationships are free and flexible. People can make new friends easily, and they have the freedom to leave unsatisfying relationships. In cultures with low relational mobility, relationships are more fixed, and people have less freedom to leave relationships. We argue that people experience higher well-being if they have the freedom to exit toxic relationships and find new partners easily. In Study 1, w…
The ongoing impact
Beyond perceived risk
The motivating effect of monetary over psychological incentives is stronger in Weird cultures
Motivating effortful behaviour is a problem employers, governments and nonprofits face globally. However, most studies on motivation are done in Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic (WEIRD) cultures. We compared how hard people in six countries worked in response to monetary incentives versus psychological motivators, such as competing with or helping others. The advantage money had over psychological interventions was larger in…
Artificial Intelligence Versus Human Fundraisers
Artificial intelligence (AI) is shaping charitable donations more and more. That means traditional theories about human fundraisers might not apply when AI is involved. In charitable storytelling, fundraisers use first-person or third-person narrative perspectives to convey their messages. Different narratives have varying effects on audiences’ donation intentions, yet the most suitable narrative perspective for AI fundraisers remains unexplored.…
Psychology (20 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (18 works) · China (16 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Geography (15 works) · Social Psychology (14 works) · Agriculture (12 works) · Political science (10 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (10 works) · Economics (9 works)