Background and Overview of the Book

Abstract

The particularistic method of cultural analysis relies on a region’s specific cultural history to explain why the region’s culture is the way it is. The particularistic method assumes incorrectly the popular view that culture is passively accepted by future generations. A very different perspective on culture sees people as evolved cultural strategists who accept, reject, and modify values and other cultural items using psychological adaptation that is functionally designed for this purpose. The empirical findings throughout our book strongly support the strategic perspective on enculturation. We hypothesize that the particularistic interpretation of enculturation derives from a value system that prioritizes tradition and interdependent self-concept—i.e., the value system of collectivism/conservatism. We introduce the parasite-stress theory of values/sociality, which is the general theory used throughout the book to analyze enculturation, cultural diversity and sociality, and to unify in shared proximate and evolutionary causation the wide range of topics treated in the book. According to this theory, the level of infectious-disease stress in a region causes people’s values—low parasite stress evokes liberalism/individualism and high parasite stress evokes conservatism/collectivism. Although scientific discoveries about values cannot identify moral or immoral activity, they may allow achievement of whatever moral goals are identified by people. The book’s empirical findings, discovered by applying the parasite-stress theory of values, indicate that democratic or equalitarian values can be promoted by reducing infectious disease in a region, whereas undemocratic values can be promoted by increasing infectious disease. Brief overviews of the subsequent 13 chapters of the book are provided.