The Past is Never Dead
Summary
Host Shankar Vedantam interviews anthropologist Joseph Henrich on how history and culture shape modern psychology. They discuss how mechanical clocks reorganized society and how the Catholic Church’s marriage rules fostered individualism in Western societies. Henrich also explains the "WEIRD" bias in psychology and the "collective brain" hypothesis, illustrating how cumulative cultural knowledge, rather than individual intelligence, drives human success.
Topics discussed
Introduction: How history and culture shape our thinking
Sponsors: TikTok physics, LinkedIn, and Progressive
The invention of clocks and the economic impact of time
Anthropological observations on time perception and individualism
Sponsors: SNHU and BetterHelp
Church reforms, nuclear families, and the rise of individualism
WEIRD psychology, market integration, and cultural variation
Sponsors: Claritin D and Land Rover Defender
Franklin expedition vs. Inuit survival and cultural knowledge
Collective brain, gene-culture co-evolution, and innovation
Outro, credits, and final sponsor messages
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