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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
Published on 7 months, 1 week ago