{"id":114366,"date":"2019-11-29T00:27:17","date_gmt":"2019-11-29T07:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=114366"},"modified":"2019-11-15T21:54:14","modified_gmt":"2019-11-16T04:54:14","slug":"the-catholic-church-made-you-weird","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2019\/11\/the-catholic-church-made-you-weird.html","title":{"rendered":"The Catholic Church Made You WEIRD"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u2026and that\u2019s a good thing<\/a>:<\/p>\n

People in the West are psychologically unlike the rest of the world. Global studies find that Western Europeans and their descendents tend to be more individualistic, less conformist, and more trusting of strangers.<\/p>\n

But why? New research posits that the medieval\u00a0Catholic Church<\/u><\/a>, and its emphasis on monogamous marriage and the small family unit as the foundation of society, is responsible.<\/p>\n

According to a study published today (Nov. 7) in the journal\u00a0Science<\/u><\/a>, countries and regions with a longer exposure to the Western Catholic Church are more likely to show the individualist, nonconformist psychology common to Western nations. The church may have inadvertently molded this psychology with medieval-era policies that ended\u00a0cousin marriages<\/u><\/a>\u00a0and other tribe-like bonds, and created nuclear, monogamous households.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany decades of research has shown that the psychology of Westerners is different from the rest of the world in that it\u2019s more individualistic, analytic, and less conforming. However, until now, we didn\u2019t have a good explanation for how people in the West ended up having a psychology that was so unique,\u201d said Steven Heine, a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia who was not involved in the current work. \u201cThis paper convincingly demonstrates that people\u2019s kinship networks are central to their psychology, and that the medieval Catholic Church instituted some policies regarding family structure that had far-reaching impact that continue to affect how people in the West think today, even if they aren\u2019t religious themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

The story of the new findings began in 2010, when anthropologist Joe Henrich of Harvard University, along with Heine and another colleague, published a study in the journal\u00a0Behavioral and Brain Sciences<\/u><\/a>\u00a0pointing out that the vast majority of psychological research has been conducted on what they called \u201cWEIRD\u201d societies: Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic. Comparative research between WEIRD societies and non-WEIRD societies suggested that WEIRD research subjects were indeed weird \u2014 less conformist, more individualistic and more trusting of strangers than most of the rest of the world, to name a few differences.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are few enterprises in the world more futile and self-defeating than a Westerner trying to extirpate the Catholic tradition.\u00a0 Most of the philosophical underpinnings of such endeavors are themselves derived from the Catholic tradition.<\/p>\n

By the way, in addition to the specialized acronym WEIRD, the Church also cherishes just the ordinary sort of weirdo too.\u00a0 It is the natural home of the oddball, the factory reject, the strange, and the eccentric.\u00a0 It\u2019s one of the things I love best about her.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2026and that\u2019s a good thing: People in the West are psychologically unlike the rest of the world. Global studies find that Western Europeans and their descendents tend to be more individualistic, less conformist, and more trusting of strangers. But why? New research posits that the medieval\u00a0Catholic Church, and its emphasis on monogamous marriage and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[760],"class_list":["post-114366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-theres-a-weirdness-in-gods-mercy"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Catholic Church Made You WEIRD<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"...and that's a good thing: People in the West are psychologically unlike the rest of the world. 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