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Thomas Talhelm

@thomastalhelm.bsky.social

90 followers 26 following 440 posts

I'm an associate professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. I also founded Smart Air, a social enterprise dedicated to making low-cost air purifiers and teaching people how to build their own.

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Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 21h

Ambitious new study finally out! 🚨 Here’s the lightning version. bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

British Journal of Psychology | Wiley Online Library

Does moving to a new environment change people's cultural thought style? We tracked the cultural thought style of 1462 university students at 18 sites over time after they moved across China for coll....

bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 19m

Tagging @tongrongtian.bsky.social for his hard work on the project! 💪

Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 21h

Much credit should go to my many co-authors 👏 Testing over 1,000 people longitudinally over three years was a LOT of work! 🫩

Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 21h

The original full text is available without a paywall at @SSRN: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Moving to Wheat-Farming Regions Increases Analytic Thought, but Moving to Cities Does Not: A Three-Wave Longitudinal Study

Does moving to a new environment change people's cultural thought style? We tracked the cultural thought style of 1,462 university students at 18 sites over tim

papers.ssrn.com

Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 21h

Instead, cultural differences are living on in other ways. Maybe it's how relationships are structured, how teachers teach, or just fitting in with the locals. For example, newcomers’ thought style became more correlated with locals’ over time. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 21h

Here’s why I think that’s fascinating. Young people in China are still learning cultural legacies rooted in ancient farming! That’s despite the fact that farming is becoming less common.

Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 21h

The changes continued through year 3, although the change came fast in the beginning and slowed down over time.

Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 21h

Oh, and the psychologists did not predict this. I guess people don’t believe my theory! 😅

Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 21h

Bingo! 🎯 What DID explain the changes in people’s thought style was whether they moved to a historically rice-farming area (like Shanghai) or wheat-farming area (like Beijing).

Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 21h

So maybe that odd wealth trend is because GDP is correlated with rice farming?

Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 21h

Rice farming required more labor and coordination than wheat, so China’s rice areas tend to be a little more interdependent and think more holistically. journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1... @sagepub.com

Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 21h

Why would that be? Here's one clue: China’s rice-farming regions are a little wealthier on average than wheat-farming areas.

Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 21h

But again, the data showed nothing! If anything, there was a slight trend in the *opposite* direction. Students moving to wealthier areas tended to think more holistically over time than other students.

Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 21h

OK, maybe it’s economic development that matters more? Our guessers predicted strong effects for moving to wealthier areas.

Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 21h

But here’s what actually happened to people who moved to big cities. Mostly nothing!

Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 21h

That’s what most people think! We asked 188 psychology students and professors to guess what we’d find, and they predicted that people moving to big cities would experience STRONG decreases in relational thought (-28%).

Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 21h

This setup is exciting (to me!) because we can test how different environments affect the way people think. For example, do people who move from rural areas to big cities like Beijing and Shanghai think more like WEIRD Westerners?

Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 21h

People in individualistic, WEIRD cultures tend to choose the abstract, categorical pairings. People in collectivistic, non-WEIRD cultures tend to choose the relational pairings. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... @science.org

Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 21h

We gave them a categorization task that’s been used a ton to measure cultural differences. Choose two of three objects to categorize together. link.springer.com/article/10.1... @springer.springernature.com @springernature.com

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Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 21h

We tested them right when they arrived at college (~August), at the end of their first semester (~January), and again three years later.

Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 21h

Here’s what we did. We tested about 1,400 students’ cognitive style as they moved to college across China.

Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 21h

Here's the bottom line first: Kids in China are still learning rice-wheat ways of thinking! That’s despite NOT actually farming.

Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 21h

Ambitious new study finally out! 🚨 Here’s the lightning version. bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

British Journal of Psychology | Wiley Online Library

bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 1d

I agree with this rule change.

Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 1d

Congratulations!

Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 1d

Congrats to all the runners (and walkers!) in the Chicago marathon today. Now it’s time to eat an entire deep dish pizza! 😆