"There do appear to be regional variations indicating that environment shapes how we behave towards one another (…) Why are there these geographical differences? (…) It is difficult to answer these questions, as culture, history, politics and a host of other factors contribute to the psychology of individuals living together, but there are some interesting accounts. As a student of behavioural science, Thomas Talhelm spent his graduate days in China, a vast country of over a billion people. Initially he lived in Guangzhou in the south and noted how, when he bumped into residents in the local busy supermarket, they would tense up, avoid eye contact, shuffle away awkwardly and avoid any conflict. They were shy around strangers and focused on avoiding conflict. However, when he visited Harbin in northern China, he noted how people behaved very differently. They were much more independent, confrontational and outgoing. Why were people from the two regions so different?
Talhelm came up with a broaden-and-build idea based on farming. Thinking about China, he noted that south of the Yangtze River, where the climate is warmer and rainfall more plentiful, farmers have been growing rice for at least 10,000 years, whereas north of the river they grow wheat.45 The crops differ significantly in how they are farmed. Rice is twice as labour-intensive compared with wheat and requires irrigation.46 An irrigation system quadruples the rice yield but it is beyond the capability of a single farmer to build or maintain one. A single family cannot provide enough labour to survive by farming rice and so success depends on the collective effort of farmers. Irrigation also has to be shared, as the same water supplies neighbouring farms. Therefore, rice farming requires cooperation and generates shared accountability and interdependence in comparison to wheat farming. Could these different farming practices influence the communities’ behaviour?
When he looked at various psychological measures of different styles of thinking, Talhelm found there was a wheat–rice divide (…) Even the way people conducted themselves in public when they thought they were relatively unobserved showed this difference between individualism and collectivism. Talhelm and his colleagues went into local Starbucks cafés in several different northern and southern Chinese cities to observe the naturalistic behaviour of customers in the café.51 People from the northern, wheat regions were more likely to be sitting alone (35 per cent) compared with those in the southern Starbucks branches (20 per cent). Researchers in the various Starbucks branches then deliberately moved chairs to partially block the aisle, to see how customers reacted to the obstacle. Based on previous observations, the prediction was that people from individualistic cultures would be more likely to change elements of the environment to amend the situation, whereas those from more collectivist cultures would be more likely to change themselves to accommodate the situation. Only three out of 100 (3 per cent) customers from the rice region moved the chairs, preferring to squeeze through the gap, in comparison to 20 per cent of those from the wheat regions, who moved the chairs out of the way."
The Science of Happiness, Bruce Hood
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