Farming and your brain

Research published in Science explains that Americans and Europeans focus on the individual while East Asians favour a more collective vision. No major surprises there, then. But the study suggests that the psychological differences we see and recognise today may in fact be down to the agricultural practices of our ancestors.

Talhelm et al. propose that a history of farming rice makes cultures more interdependent while wheat farming encourages independence – and that the legacies we inherited from our agricultural forefathers continue to affect us today.

The north-south divide

The team began research after Talhelm, a social psychologist who taught in China for a few years, noticed behavioural differences in people from the north and south. ‘People in the north seemed more direct, while people in the south were more concerned about harmony and avoiding conflict’, he said.

To investigate why this might be the case, Talhelm’s team tested 1162 Han Chinese volunteers in six sites around the country. They were shown sets of three objects that shared a common link, such as a bus, a train and a set of tracks, as part of the research.

Those from the rice-growing southern regions of China were found to be more interdependent and holistic-thinking than participants from the wheat-growing north. While those from the rice-growing regions paired the objects according to their relationship (such as a train and tracks), volunteers from areas with a history of growing wheat made pairs based on abstract similarities (such as a train and a bus).

The Yangtze River draws a dividing line between the rice-growing south and a wheat-growing north. To control for confounds like climate, the researchers tested people from neighbouring counties along the rice-wheat border, and found differences that were just as large.