A growing body of research suggests that populations around the globe vary substantially along several important psychological dimensions and that populations characterized as Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) are particularly unusual. People from these societies tend to be more individualistic, independent, and impersonally prosocial (e.g., trusting of strangers) while revealing less conformity and in-group loyalty. Although these patterns are now well documented, few efforts have sought to explain them. Here, we propose that the Western Church (i.e., the branch of Christianity that evolved into the Roman Catholic Church) transformed European kinship structures during the Middle Ages and that this transformation was a key factor behind a shift towards a WEIRDer psychology.A new study traces the origins of contemporary individualism to the powerful influence of the Catholic Church in Europe more than 1,000 years ago, during the Middle Ages…

Scientific American article: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/western-individualism-arose-from-incest-taboo/.

Original article in Science (quite readable): https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6466/eaau5141.

Another review in The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/10/joseph-henrich-weird-people/615496/.

If this individualism and nonconformity led to the Scientific Revolution, then… the Catholic Church caused modern science.

God does work in mysterious ways.