Article
Teens in Rice County Are More Interdependent
and Think More Holistically Than Nearby
Wheat County
Social Psychological and
Personality Science
1-11
ª The Author(s) 2018
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1948550618808868
journals.sagepub.com/home/spp
Xiawei Dong1,2, Thomas Talhelm3 , and Xiaopeng Ren1,2,4,5
Abstract
China’s smallest province Ningxia sits in North Central China. Surrounded by herding cultures to the north and wheat farmers to
the south, Qingtongxia is a small outpost of rice farming fed by the Yellow River. We test the hypothesis that rice-farming cultures
are more interdependent by comparing high school students from Qingtongxia (N ¼ 190) to students in a nearby wheat district,
Yuanzhou (N ¼ 223). Comparing two nearby counties provides a natural test case that controls for third variables. Students in the
rice county thought more holistically, treated a close friend better than a stranger, and showed lower implicit individualism.
Students in the rice area showed more relative perception than students from the wheat areas on the practice trials of the framed
line task, but differences were nonsignificant on the main trials. Differences between teenagers—born after the year 2000—
suggest that rice–wheat differences continue among China’s next generation.
Keywords
rice, culture, China, farming, agriculture
China’s smallest province is Ningxia in dry North Central
China (Figure 1). To the south and east is China’s historic
wheat and millet center, the site of Xi’an, China’s ancient capital. To the north and west are grasslands and Mongolian herders. But tucked in amid these wheat farmers and herders is a
small pocket of rice districts. With water from the Yellow
River, farmers there have enough water to fill rice paddies.
This geography carves a stark contrast between nearby districts. To the south, Yuanzhou (“Yoo-en-joe”) devoted 0% to rice
from 1949 to 1990 (Online Supplemental Figures S1 and S2;
Guyuan Local Chronicles Office, 1993). To the north, 90% of the
farmland in Qingtongxia District (“Ching-tong-shah”) was on a
rotational rice paddy system from 1941 to 1990 (Qingtongxia
Local Chronicles Office, 2004). Based on the availability of irrigation water from the Yellow River, about a third of the farmland
in any given year plants paddy rice, and almost all farmers have
frequent experience farming rice. This study takes advantage of
this natural contrast to test whether areas that farmed rice have
tighter, more interdependent cultures than wheat areas.
Rice Farming
Our model of rice farming argues that this particular type of farming encourages tight, reciprocal ties because paddy rice requires
irrigation networks and intensive labor (Talhelm & Oishi, 2018;
Talhelm et al., 2014). Anthropologists embedded in rice cultures
from Japan to West Africa have found that rice farmers exchange
labor and manage irrigation networks in the village (Bray, 1986).
The idea is that these practices push cultures to become more
focused on tight, duty bound relationships over time.
In contrast, wheat farming requires about half as many man
hours as rice (Buck, 1935, p. 302; Fei, 1945, p. 214). Wheat
farmers do exchange labor, but the need is smaller, and the
obligation less strict (Talhelm & Oishi, 2018). Wheat is also
different from rice because wheat often relies on rainfall rather
than human irrigation. Thus, wheat farmers have less need to
coordinate and rely on other people.
A recent study found that (1) people in Northern China are
more individualistic and think more analytically than people
in Southern China and (2) these differences fall along the lines
of where people farmed rice versus wheat (Talhelm et al.,
2014). Yet there are many differences between Northern and
1
CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese
Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
2
Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Beijing, China
3
University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Chicago, IL, USA
4
Department of Psychology, Renmin University, Beijing, China
5
Laboratory of the Department of Psychology, Renmin University, Beijing,
China
Corresponding Author:
Xiaopeng Ren, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, University
of Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 16 Lincui Road, Beijing 100101, China.
Email: renxp@psych.ac.cn
2
Social Psychological and Personality Science XX(X)
Figure 1. Ningxia province is located in North Central China—farther north than the rice–wheat border. But because the Yellow River cuts
across the north of the Province, Qingtongxia District (left) grows a significant amount of paddy rice, unlike the drier wheat district of Yuanzhou.
Southern China. How do we know that rice and wheat caused
these differences?
The earlier study addressed this question by doing a more
focused comparison of rice–wheat differences along central
China’s rice–wheat border (Talhelm et al., 2014, p. 606). However, even though that comparison was more focused, it still
stretched 2,000 km from Sichuan to Shanghai. Comparing
larger samples from two nearby counties in Ningxia provides
a much cleaner control over third variables.
Ningxia (“ning-shah”) also provides a starker comparison.
Along China’s central rice–wheat border, even in the wheatmajority counties, many counties farm 10%, 20%, or 30% rice.
In Ningxia, the wheat representative is truly a nonrice county:
Yuanzhou devotes no farmland to rice (Statistical Bureau,
1985, 1994; Statistical Bureau Ningxia, 2014).
Of course, two areas will never be completely equal on all
control variables. Yet Qingtongxia and Yuanzhou provide an
interesting test case because the remaining differences on two
important variables lead to the opposite prediction from our
prediction based on rice (Table 1).
Modernization
Perhaps the most widely accepted theory of culture is modernization theory. Modernization theory argues that, as cultures
become wealthier and more modernized, they become more
individualistic (Greenfield, 2009; Inglehart & Baker, 2000).
In Ningxia, the rice county has a gross domestic product
(GDP) per capita almost 3 times higher than the wheat county
(Table 2).1 Thus, modernization theory would predict that the
rice county is more individualistic.
Climatic Demands
Van de Vliert has argued that extreme climates push people to
be more collectivistic, to band together against the climate
(Van De Vliert, Yang, Wang, & Ren, 2013). In China, Van
de Vliert quantified climate demands as the average temperature deviation from 22 C. Using Van de Vliert’s climate and
wealth metric, the wheat county has higher climatic demands
than the rice county (Table 2).
Van de Vliert also argues that wealth helps buffer people from
harsh environments. That means that the effect of climate should
be weaker in wealthy places. Collectivism should be the strongest
in places with both lower income and demanding climates. In
Ningxia, the wheat county has a harsher climate and less wealth.
Although these districts are near each other, the difference in
climate is not small. If we compare these districts to Van de
Vliert’s province rankings in China, the wheat district’s climatic
demands score would rank it near the top of collectivism—3rd
of 31 provinces in collectivism (Van De Vliert et al., 2012, Table
5). In contrast, the rice county’s score would rank it 24th. Thus, climatic demands would predict that the wheat county should be
more collectivistic. In sum, Qingtongxia and Yuanzhou offer a test
case that naturally contrasts the predictions based on rice farming
with predictions from modernization and climatic demands.
Other Models of Culture
In Online Supplemental Material, we sketch out other important historical variables that might cause cultural differences.
Previous research has shown that herding cultures tend to be
more individualistic (Goldschmidt, 1971; Uskul, Kitayama,
& Nisbett, 2008), although herding makes up only a small
Dong et al.
3
Table 1. In Ningxia, Rice Farming Leads to Opposite Prediction From Modernization.
Table 2. Demographic Comparison Between Rice and Wheat Districts.
District
Qingtongxia
Yuanzhou
Percent Rice
Farmland
Climate
Demands
Average
Income (Yuan)
GDP per
Capita (Yuan)
Population
Density (km2)
Percent Han
Chinese
37
0
57.0
60.6
31,275
29,050
47,620
18,778
114.6
119.6
79.9
52.1
Note. Climate demands ¼ 2 (|T1 22.0| þ |T7 22.0|; T1 ¼ average temperature in January; T7 ¼ average temperature in July). Income refers to average wage
of employed persons in urban private units. Rice data are from 1949 (Qingtongxia Local Chronicles Office, 2004); other data are from the Ningxia Statistical Yearbook 2014 (Statistical Bureau Ningxia, 2014). GDP ¼ gross domestic product.
percentage of the agricultural economy in both counties.
Researchers have argued that areas with more infectious diseases are more collectivistic (Fincher, Thornhill, Murray, &
Schaller, 2008). Good county-level data are hard to find, but
what little data are available show higher rates of diseases in
Yuanzhou, which would work against our hypothesis.
Supplemental Section 1 covers alternative predictors in
more detail. However, it is important to point out that a natural test case like this is most suited for minimizing variance in
third variables rather than for estimating their effect size.
Thus, these comparisons are best thought of as ruling out
these alternative models as confounds rather than disproving
the models in general.
An Isolated Rice Area in Northern China
Qingtongxia is an interesting natural test case for one more
reason. Qingtongxia and a few nearby counties form an
isolated rice island sitting in a sea of wheat and herding.2
Is it possible for rice farming to influence culture even
when that rice farming is confined to a small area surrounded by herders and wheat farmers?
One shortcoming of the previous findings is that
they compared a rice area covering roughly half of
Han China (Talhelm et al., 2014). In such large areas, rice cultures can reinforce each other by spreading customs, dialects,
and even institutions within the cultural region. For example,
if one rice village hits upon the cultural practice of reciprocal
labor exchange, that behavior could spread more easily to other
nearby rice communities. In that way, being surrounded by
other rice communities could theoretically amplify the effect
of rice farming on culture.
But what happens when most of the neighbors are herders
and wheat farmers? Do their different customs and social styles
dilute the impact of rice farming? Comparing this isolated rice
culture allows us to test this question.
4
Social Psychological and Personality Science XX(X)
Table 3. Demographic Characteristics for Rice and Wheat Samples.
Site
Qingtongxia (Rice)
Yuanzhou (Wheat)
N
Mean Age (SD)
Female (%)
Family Income per
Person 4,000 RMB/Month (%)
Parents’ Education High School (%)
190
223
15.6 (.63)
15.5 (.73)
49.4
56.1
77.7
87.9
93.8
80.6
Note. Participants reported their parents’ highest education attainment from 1 (elementary school or less) to 6 (master’s or above). Participants reported family
monthly income from 1 (1,000 RMB or less) to 10 (50,000 RMB or more).
Could the Differences Be a “Minority
Group Effect?”
Although Qingtongxia is an isolated rice area, this isolation is
in rice farming only. Qingtongxia is not physically isolated
from the rest of Ningxia Province. For example, there are no
mountains or deserts separating it from the nearby population
centers of Yinchuan and Zhongwei.
If Qingtongxia were more strictly isolated, it could raise the
possibility that Qingtongxia is more collectivistic because it is
a small out-group in the larger province. Yet, in the experience
of one of our researchers who grew up in Ningxia, there is little
sense of in-group Qingtongxia versus out-group Ningxia. However, some people do seem to have a subtle sense that the culture there is a bit different from other places in Ningxia.
As in any study trying to locate causality behind cultural differences—where we cannot randomly assign entire cultures to
farm rice for generations—causality cannot be determined in a
single study. Instead, the findings in Ningxia should also be
considered against the backdrop of a bigger set of studies. If the
rice–wheat differences in Ningxia are solely an artifact of being
a small group amid a larger group, that would not explain the
previous differences between Northern and Southern China
as a whole (Talhelm et al., 2014). The large rice area of Southern China has traditionally had a larger population than the
wheat areas and is the complete opposite of an isolated bloc.
counties seem to be a result of the external environment and not
active choice. However, this study cannot rule out the possibility that people have chosen to move to farming areas that are
more consistent with their cultural style.
Method
We tested 413 high school students (53.2% female) in Ningxia:
190 participants in Qingtongxia (rice) and 223 participants in
Yuanzhou (wheat). Participants ranged from 14 to 18 years old
(average ¼ 15.5). Students filled out the questionnaires on pencil and paper as an in-class activity. Online Supplemental
Material displays all of the original materials. The study design
received institutional review board approval and approval from
teachers. Students were told that participation was not required.
Participants reported parental education from elementary
school to master’s or above, family monthly income, and family subjective socioeconomic status (SES) from 1 (upper class)
to 5 (lower class). These are not developed areas. Most students’ parents had a high school education or less (86.8%), and
most students (94.9%) rated their SES as “middle” or lower. In
line with the statistics showing the rice area has higher GDP per
capita, students from the rice area reported significantly higher
family income than students from the wheat region (p < .001).
Table 3 shows more demographic details.
Measurement Selection and Power
Is Reverse Causality a Problem?
One external problem with trying to understand cultural differences is reverse causality. Particularly with two counties so
close to each other, how do we know that people in the rice
county weren’t more interdependent to begin with and so chose
to farm rice? If so, interdependence would cause rice farming,
not the other way around.
Fortunately, with rice farming, it is fairly easy to know
whether people in an area could grow rice or not. The answer
depends on the environment. Does the area have the right soil,
warm enough weather, and sufficient water?
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
(2010) quantifies these environmental factors in its Global
Agro-Ecological Zones database. This database uses soil,
slope, climate data from 1961 to 1990 to calculate a crop suitability index for wetland rice. Qingtongxia scored 55.5, which
is similar to Jiangsu province (a rice province). Yuanzhou
scored 0. Thus, the rice-farming differences between the two
The sample size had the ability to detect small effects (Cohen’s
d ¼ 0.20) at 80% power. In choosing measures, we specifically
selected measures that avoid the documented problems with
using self-reports to measure cross-cultural differences (Heine,
Lehman, Peng, & Greenholtz, 2002; Peng, Nisbett, & Wong,
1997). The sociogram, triad, and framed line task are all behavioral tasks, and all have been previously used to document
East–West differences. The loyalty/nepotism task is the closest
to a self-report measure, although this task does not ask people
to rate their values. Instead, it asks them how they would
behave in specific, concrete situations. This type of task fits
with the evidence of Peng and colleagues (1997), who found
that using scenarios to measure cultural differences was more
reliable than abstract self-report questions.
Cultural Thought Style
We measured cultural thought style using the 14-item picture
version of the triad task (Ji, Zhang, & Nisbett, 2004). In each
Dong et al.
5
Figure 2. Rice farming and cultural thought style. (a) In the pictorial triad task, participants see a focal item (such as a cow) and choose whether
it should be paired with another item that belongs in the same abstract category (chicken) or an item that shares a functional relationship (grass).
(b) Participants in the rice county chose more relational pairings. The graph controls for gender differences. Bars ¼ 95% CIs.
triad, participants see a focal object (such as a cow) and choose
which of two objects (chicken or grass) to pair with it (Figure 2).
One item belongs to the same abstract category (cows and chickens are animals), and one item shares a functional relationship
(cows eat grass; these are also called “relational” or “holistic”
pairings). We scored the triad as the percentage of relational
pairings. Previous research has found that people in China
choose more relational pairings than Americans (Ji et al., 2004).
Perceptual Style
Participants completed the framed line task, a measure of perceptual style that differs across cultures (Kitayama, Duffy,
Kawamura, & Larsen, 2003). In this task, participants have to
draw lines that either take into account the relationship of the
line to the frame as a whole (relative task) or ignore the frame
(analytic/absolute task; Online Supplemental Figure S3). Participants took three practice trials and six trials of each version
on pen and paper. Previous research has found that people in
interdependent cultures tend to have more “relative bias” (more
error in the absolute task than the relative task) than people in
independent cultures (Kitayama et al., 2003).
Implicit Individualism
We used the sociogram task to measure implicit individualism
(Kitayama, Park, Sevincer, Karasawa, & Uskul, 2009). In the
task, participants draw their social network with circles to represent the self and friends. Prior studies have found that
Americans (and people from the wheat areas of China) draw
the self larger than they draw friends (Kitayama et al.,
2009; Talhelm et al., 2014). We measure self-inflation as the
size of the self-circle minus the average size of the circles for
the friends (Figure 3).
Loyalty/Nepotism
The loyalty/nepotism task measures whether participants treat
friends better than they treat strangers for the same behavior
(Wang, Leung, See, & Gao, 2011). Participants read scenarios
about doing a business deal with a friend or a stranger who was
either honest or dishonest in the deal (Figure 4). Then, the participant can use money to reward the honesty or punish the dishonesty from 0 to 1,000 RMB (US$145). The friend and
stranger scenarios are identical except for whether the other
person is a friend or stranger. Participants read the four scenarios in a fixed order: honest friend, dishonest friend, honest
stranger, and dishonest stranger.
The main outcome measure was whether they treated the
friend differently from how they treated the stranger
([reward friend punish friend] [reward stranger punish stranger]). This could be seen (1) positively as loyalty to
the friend or (2) negatively as nepotism by treating the
friend better than the stranger.
Analysis
We analyzed the triad task using a generalized linear mixedeffects model with a binomial link in the program R. Because
the triad task is a series of binary choices (categorical or relational), it is best analyzed as a series of binomials. To calculate
the effect size of the triad task, we used Nagelkerke R2 (or
change in R2 after adding the key variable), which is the equivalent of the R2 in a least squares regression. For the loyalty/
nepotism task, the sociogram task, and the framed line task,
we compared the two counties using independent samples
t tests, as well as regressions that controlled for demographic
variables, with rice coded as wheat ¼ 0 and rice ¼ 1.
6
Social Psychological and Personality Science XX(X)
Figure 3. Rice farming and implicit individualism. (a) In the Sociogram task, participants draw circles to represent the self and friends.
Researchers then measure the size of the self versus the size of the friends. The calculation takes the average of all friends measured at the
longest diameter. (b) People in the rice county self-inflated less. Bars ¼ 95% CIs.
Figure 4. Rice farming and loyalty/nepotism. (a) In the loyalty–nepotism task, participants imagine going into a business deal with a friend or a
stranger. Participants get a chance to reward an honest friend/stranger or punish a dishonest friend/stranger. (b) Participants in the rice county
showed a larger difference in how they treated friends versus strangers than people in the wheat county. Bars ¼ 95% CIs.
Results
Rice–Wheat Differences
Cultural thought style. People in the rice county chose more
relational pairings in the triad task, B ¼ 0.28, p < .001,
95% CI [0.15, 0.41], r ¼ .22 (Figure 2). Participants in the
rice county selected 80% relational pairings versus 75% in
the wheat county.
Implicit individualism. People in the rice county also self-inflated
less than people in the wheat county, t(1, 389) ¼ 3.62, p <
.001, d ¼ 0.37, 95% CI [0.57, 0.17] (Figure 3). Comparing
the circles for self and friends separately, participants in the two
counties drew the self in similar sizes, t(1, 389) ¼ 0.15, p ¼
.881, d ¼ 0.02, 95% CI [0.22, 0.18]. But participants in the
rice county drew friends larger than participants in the wheat
county, t(1, 389) ¼ 3.98, p < .001, d ¼ 0.41, 95% CI [0.29, 0.61].
Loyalty/Nepotism. Students in the rice area show a larger friend–
stranger distinction than students in the wheat area, t(1, 398) ¼
2.74, p ¼ .006, d ¼ 0.27, 95% CI [0.07, 0.47] (Figure 4). Some
researchers have argued that “in-group love” does not necessarily entail “out-group hate” (Halevy, Bornstein, & Sagiv,
2008). Thus, we tested whether rice–wheat differences were
Dong et al.
driven by rewarding, punishing, or both. People in the rice
county showed more in-group “love” than people in the wheat
county (reward friend reward stranger), t(1, 398) ¼ 10.97,
p < .001, d ¼ 1.10, 95% CI [0.89, 1.31]. They also punished the
outgroup more (punish friend punish stranger), t(1, 399) ¼
3.08, p ¼ .002, d ¼ 0.31, 95% CI [0.51, 0.11]. Thus,
people in the rice county showed both “love” toward an honest
friend and “hate” toward a dishonest stranger.
Perceptual style. We analyzed framed line task relative bias as
(average absolute task error relative task error). Thus, relative
bias represents holistic perceptual style. People in the rice county
showed more relative bias on the framed line task practice questions, t(1, 397) ¼ 3.99, p < .001, d ¼ 0.40, 95% CI [0.20, 0.60],
but this difference mostly disappeared on the later questions, t (1,
393) ¼ 0.34, p ¼ .731, d ¼ 0.03, 95% CI [0.16, 0.23].
We found that error on two trials with large frames had an
outsized influence on the results. With six relative trials, each
trial should represent about 16.7% of the total relative error.
However, the two relative trials with the largest frames
accounted for 51.4% of the total error.
To more equally weight the trials, we divided errors by the
correct answer to get ratios. Calculated as error ratios, rice–
wheat differences remained on the practice questions,
t(1, 397) ¼ 5.09, p < .001, d ¼ 0.52, 95% CI [0.32, 0.73], and
the difference on the main trials was now marginal, t(1, 393) ¼
1.37, p ¼ .171, d ¼ 0.14, 95% CI [0.06, 0.34].
It is possible that the differences in the practice questions
were a fluke or that previous findings of cultural differences
on the framed line task do not replicate (Hakim, Simons, Zhao,
& Wan, 2016). Another possible explanation for why differences decreased on later questions is that people have baseline
differences in attention to the background, but asking them in
item after item to compare the line to the background could get
them into the habit of paying more attention to the background.
In Online Supplemental Material, we analyze trial-by-trial
error and find that rice–wheat differences were largest when
participants switched from the relative task to the absolute task
but decreased after four trials (Supplemental Section 9.1).
Thus, there is some evidence for habituation.
Rice–Wheat Differences Compared to China as a Whole
The results showed cultural differences between nearby rice and
wheat districts similar to China’s overall rice–wheat differences.
How big is the difference between these two counties compared
to Northern and Southern China as a whole? We compared differences in thought style, the main variable in the previous study
(Talhelm et al., 2014). Rice–wheat differences in thought style in
Ningxia were about 20% smaller than between Northern and
Southern China as a whole (comparing regression coefficients
of a categorical rice–wheat variable B ¼ 0.382 for China as a
whole and B ¼ 0.309 within Ningxia). Although there are several differences between these two studies, one explanation
could be that the rice difference between these two counties
7
(0% vs. 37% farmland devoted to rice) is smaller than Northern
and Southern China (13% vs. 68%).
Potential Confounds
Gender. The wheat sample had more women (56%) than the rice
sample (49%). Prior studies have found that women sometimes
score higher on cultural measures of collectivism than men, so this
would work against the proposed rice–wheat differences (Talhelm
et al., 2014, 2015). Similar to prior findings, women chose more
relational pairings than men, B ¼ 0.28, p < .001, 95% CI [0.16,
0.41], r ¼ .22. Rice–wheat differences remained after controlling
for gender, B ¼ 0.31, p < .001, 95% CI [0.18, 0.44], r ¼ .23.
Men had more relative bias than women on the framed line
task (p ¼ .020), but rice–wheat differences were similar controlling for gender. There were no significant gender differences in self-inflation or loyalty/nepotism (ps > .22).
Parental education. Prior studies have found that people with
higher education think less holistically (Talhelm et al., 2015).
Students whose parents had completed more education chose
fewer relational pairings, B ¼ 0.11, p < .001, 95% CI
[0.17, 0.05], r ¼ .19. Rice–wheat differences remained
after controlling for parental education, B ¼ 0.25, p < .001,
95% CI [0.12, 0.38], r ¼ .18.
Students with more educated parents had less relative bias
on the framed line task, r ¼ .11, p ¼ .035. Rice–wheat differences were similar controlling for parental education. Parental
education was not related to self-inflation or loyalty/nepotism
(ps > .74).
Family income. Prior studies have found that people of higher SES
think less holistically (Na et al., 2010). Students from wealthier
families chose fewer relational pairings, B ¼ 0.08, p < .004,
95% CI [0.13, 0.02], r ¼ .14. Controlling for family income,
rice–wheat differences persisted, B ¼ 0.34, p < .001, 95% CI
[0.21, 0.47], r ¼ .25. Family income was not related to selfinflation, loyalty/nepotism, or the framed line task (ps > .18).
Age. A study in the United States found that older participants
think less holistically (Talhelm et al., 2015). In our sample,
older students thought more holistically, B ¼ 0.10, 95% CI
[0.00, 0.19], p ¼ .039, r ¼ .10. Controlling for age, rice–wheat
differences were significant, B ¼ 0.26, p < .001, 95% CI [0.20,
0.39], r ¼ .20. Age was not related to self-inflation, loyalty/
nepotism, or the framed line task (ps > .31).
Social status. There was no relationship between self-rated social
status and holistic thought, B ¼ 0.01, p ¼ .776, 95% CI [0.08,
0.10], r ¼ .01. However, people of higher status showed marginally less relative bias on the framed line task, B ¼ 1.77, p ¼
.06, 95% CI [3.58, 0.04], r ¼ .10. Rice–wheat differences
were similar controlling for social status. Social status was
unrelated to self-inflation and loyalty/nepotism (ps > .65). In
sum, rice–wheat differences remained after controlling
for several demographic variables. Tables 4–8 find that
8
Social Psychological and Personality Science XX(X)
Table 4. Holistic Thought Regressions for Rice.
Variable
Table 6. Differences in Self-Inflation.
B
SE
Z
p
95% CI
Model 1
Age
Female
SES
Family income
Parental education
.05
.28
.14
.07
.12
.05
.07
.05
.03
.03
1.02
4.29
2.57
2.46
3.42
.309
<.001
.010
.014
<.001
.05
.15
.03
.13
.18
.15
.41
.24
.02
.05
Model 2
Age
Female
SES
Family income
Parental education
Rice
.05
.29
.15
.11
.08
.31
.05
.07
.05
.03
.03
.07
0.97
4.45
2.86
3.52
2.37
4.40
.331
<.001
.004
<.001
.018
<.001
.05
.16
.05
.17
.15
.17
.15
.42
.26
.05
.01
.45
B
SE
b
t
p
Model 1
Age
Female
SES
Family income
Parental education
0.44
0.10
0.11
0.12
0.13
.60
.77
.63
.36
.41
.04
.01
.01
.02
.02
0.74
0.14
0.17
0.34
0.33
.457
.891
.862
.735
.739
Model 2
Age
Female
SES
Family income
Parental education
Rice
0.42
0.01
0.22
0.23
0.48
2.91
.59
.76
.62
.36
.41
.81
.04
.02
.02
.04
.07
.19
0.72 .473
0.01 .994
0.36 .718
0.63 .529
1.16 .246
3.61 <.001
Variable
95% CI
1.62
1.40
1.34
0.82
0.94
0.73
1.62
1.24
0.58
0.66
1.58 0.73
1.48 1.49
1.44 0.99
0.49 0.95
1.29 0.33
4.49 1.33
Note. “Rice” is coded as 1 ¼ Qingtongxia and 0 ¼ Yuanzhou. Socioeconomic status (SES) is self-reported family SES from 1 (upper class) to 5 (lower class). Students reported their parents’ highest educational attainment from 1
(elementary school or less) to 6 (master’s or above).
Note. “Rice” is coded as 1 ¼ Qingtongxia and 0 ¼ Yuanzhou. Socioeconomic status (SES) is self-reported family SES from 1 (upper class) to 5 (lower class). Students reported their parents’ highest educational attainment from 1
(elementary school or less) to 6 (master’s or above).
Table 5. Differences in Loyalty/Nepotism.
Table 7. Framed Line Task Regressions for Rice.
Variable
Model 1
Age
Female
SES
Family income
Parental education
B
SE
b
t
p
0.41
0.44
0.43
0.34
0.13
.41
.53
.43
.25
.28
.06
.04
.06
.08
.03
1.01
0.84
1.02
1.37
0.47
.313
.400
.311
.173
.642
95% CI
Variable
B
SE
b
t
p
95% CI
0.39
0.59
0.40
0.82
0.42
Model 1
Age
Female
SES
Family income
Parental education
0.63
2.80
2.15
0.54
1.07
1.02
1.31
1.07
0.61
0.69
.03 .61 .538 2.62 1.37
.11 2.14 .033 5.37 0.24
.12 2.00 .047 4.25 0.04
.05
.88 .380 0.66 1.74
.09 1.55 .121 2.41 0.28
Model 2
Age
0.41 .41 .05 1.01 .315 1.21 0.39
Female
0.39 .53 .04 0.75 .454 1.42 0.63
SES
0.38 .43 .05 0.89 .377 1.21 0.46
Family income
0.19 .25
.05
0.75 .455 0.31 0.69
Parental education
0.01 .28
.00
0.04 .971 0.55 0.57
Rice
1.17 .56
.11
2.10 .037
0.08 2.26
Model 2
Age
Female
SES
Family income
Parental education
Rice
0.63
2.85
2.22
0.68
1.20
1.15
1.02
1.31
1.08
0.64
0.70
1.39
.03 .62 .534 2.63 1.36
.11 2.17 .031 5.42 0.28
.12 2.06 .040 4.33 0.11
.06 1.07 .285 0.57 1.92
.09 1.70 .090 2.58 0.18
.04 .83 .407 3.87 1.57
Note. “Rice” is coded as 1 ¼ Qingtongxia and 0 ¼ Yuanzhou. Socioeconomic status (SES) is self-reported family SES from 1 (upper class) to 5 (lower class). Students reported their parents’ highest educational attainment from 1
(elementary school or less) to 6 (master’s or above).
Note. “Rice” is coded as 1 ¼ Qingtongxia and 0 ¼ Yuanzhou. Relative bias represents holistic perceptual style in the framed line task. Relative bias ¼ (average error on the absolute task average error on the relative task error).
Socioeconomic status (SES) is self-reported family SES from 1 (upper class)
to 5 (lower class). Students reported their parents’ highest educational attainment from 1 (elementary school or less) to 6 (master’s or above).
1.21
1.48
1.27
0.15
0.67
rice–wheat differences remain while controlling for these
demographics simultaneously.
Controlled Comparison
Discussion
We found that students in the rice county thought more holistically were more loyal/nepotistic toward friends and selfinflated less than students in a nearby wheat county. This is
despite the fact that the rice county is situated in Northern
China near areas that herd and farm wheat. The results of this
study suggest that—at least sometimes—rice cultures can
appear even when they are isolated in drier regions, surrounded
by wheat farmers and herders.
This study builds on prior research by presenting a more controlled test comparison of nearby rice and wheat areas. Of
course, any natural comparison of cultural differences cannot
prove that rice and wheat caused these differences. However,
comparing nearby counties helps control for third variables
like history of invasion, warfare, and natural disasters. In the
end, accumulated evidence over time from different locations can give more clarity about whether rice areas are culturally different from areas with other historical subsistence
styles.
Dong et al.
9
Table 8. Framed Line Task (Practice Questions) Regressions for Rice.
Variable
B
SE
b
t
Model 1
Age
0.34 .30 .06 1.17
Female
0.05 .38 .01 0.14
SES
0.47 .31 .09 1.52
Family income
0.29 .18 .09 1.61
Parental education 0.18 .20 .05 0.88
p
95% CI
.244
.890
.130
.108
.378
0.23
0.80
1.08
0.06
0.57
0.92
0.69
0.14
0.64
0.22
Model 2
Age
0.34 .30 .06 1.18 .240
Female
0.00 .38 .00 0.00 .999
SES
0.42 .31 .09 1.37 .172
Family income
0.12 .19 .09 0.67 .505
Parental education 0.02 .20 .20 0.10 .919
Rice
1.35 .40 .18 3.39 <.001
0.23
0.74
1.02
0.24
0.42
0.57
0.92
0.74
0.18
0.49
0.38
2.13
Note. “Rice” is coded as 1 ¼ Qingtongxia and 0 ¼ Yuanzhou. Relative bias represents holistic perceptual style in the framed line task. Relative bias ¼ (average
error on the absolute task average error on the relative task error). Socioeconomic status (SES) is self-reported family SES from 1 (upper class) to 5 (lower
class). Students reported their parents’ highest educational attainment from 1
(elementary school or less) to 6 (master’s or above).
Contrasting Rice With Alternative Theories
Although this study compares two similar areas, it also intentionally compares two counties that are in the opposite direction on
important variables for alternative theories. For example, modernization theory argues that wealthier, more modernized areas
should be more individualistic (Greenfield, 2009; Inglehart &
Baker, 2000). People in the rice area were less individualistic,
even though the area is 3 times wealthier than the wheat area.
More Individual-Level Controls
One weakness of the prior rice study in China was that it controlled
for many province-level variables, but it had few individual-level
control variables like parental education and income. This study
measured more individual variables and found that rice–wheat differences are robust to these family characteristics.
Rice and the Future of Culture
These students in Ningxia should not be considered farmers,
since it is rare for children to farm in China nowadays. However, these areas were overwhelmingly agricultural in recent
history. In 1949, over 90% of the labor force was in agriculture
(Statistical Bureau Ningxia, 1985). Even as recently as 1985
(when these students’ parents were growing up), 82% of labor
was in agriculture. Thus, it is likely that many students’ parents
or grandparents are or were farmers.
Studies have found evidence that cultural differences based
on historical subsistence style continue to into the modern era,
even in places where most people no longer practice that subsistence style and instead work in modern industry (Alesina,
Giuliano, & Nunn, 2013). The earlier rice–wheat study tested
college students, most of whom have never farmed in their
lives. As another example, Nisbett and Cohen (1996) found
evidence that areas of the United States settled by people from
Scots Irish herding cultures have more lenient attitudes
toward honor violence and higher rates of honor violence.
That’s despite the fact that these differences were measured
in the 1990s, long after most American southerners had
stopped herding.
Rice Culture: Evoked, Transmitted, or Both?
Some evolutionary psychologists have drawn a distinction
between evoked culture and transmitted culture (Barkow, Cosmides, & Tooby, 2015). Transmitted culture happens when culture passes between people through social learning. For
example, people mimic others around them, or parents teach
their children cultural patterns.
In contrast, evoked culture happens when the environment
triggers inborn evolutionary modules. For example, some
researchers have argued that seeing signs of disease triggers a
system of built-in responses, such as rejecting outsiders (Schaller & Park, 2011). The argument is that humans all around the
world have this built-in system, but the hot environments
around the equator tend to have more diseases. Thus, hot environments activate this system more often, and these cultures
become more closed to outsiders. In this way, different environments evoke different human evolutionary modules, thus
producing cultural differences.
Our model of rice culture includes some elements that are
common in evoked culture. The physical environment to grow
rice (rainfall, soil, and temperature) is a necessary part of rice
farming, and environmental variables like these are a common
element in many examples evoked culture. Cooperating with
others in the face of labor challenges might be a built-in evolutionary module. Rice farming could check these boxes of
evoked culture.
Yet digging deeper, the picture gets more complicated. Norenzayan (2006) has argued that, “although evoked and transmitted culture are theoretically distinct processes, it is
notoriously difficult to disentangle the two” (p. 126). We think
the same is true of rice. Although rice farming may check a few
boxes of evoked culture, many features of rice farming fit with
transmitted culture. For example, rice farmers used advanced
techniques like transplanting and technologies like wooden
“dragon’s backbone” pumps (Talhelm & Oishi, 2018, Figure
3.3). These could only have been learned through accumulated
experience and passed on socially rather than built in by evolution or learned individually.
Even the rice plant is a form of technology. By selecting different strains of rice, humans have been able to extend the natural reach of rice into colder northern regions (Vaughan, Lu, &
Tomooka, 2008). Over time, rice farming has grown into a
complex cultural process, fitting with Richerson and Boyd’s
(2005) description of accumulated culture: “The single most
important adaptive feature of culture is that it allows the gradual, cumulative assembly of adaptations over many
10
Social Psychological and Personality Science XX(X)
generations—adaptations that no single individual could evoke
on his or her own” (p. 45).
Rice Differences in the Modern World
This Ningxia sample is the youngest we have ever tested for
rice–wheat differences. The fact that these differences appear
among China’s next generation hints that these differences are
continuing over time. Only future studies can say how long
these deep-rooted cultural patterns will live on as China continues to modernize.
Authors’ Note
This study reports all measures, conditions, and data exclusions.
No “failed” study was attempted and then later withheld from reporting in this line of work. All original materials are reported in the
Supplemental Materials. Original data are available at the Open
Science Framework, excluding identifying information.
Xiawei Dong, Xiaopeng Ren, and Thomas Talhelm designed the
research; Xiawei Dong collected the data; Thomas Talhelm and
Xiawei Dong analyzed the data; Thomas Talhelm and Xiawei Dong
wrote the article; and Xiaopeng Ren sponsored the research.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to
the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
ORCID iD
Thomas Talhelm
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0954-5758
Supplemental Material
The supplemental material is available in the online version of the
article.
Notes
1. Some researchers have argued that gross domestic product is not
the best measure of modernization (Inglehart & Norris, 2003). Differences on metrics like wages, income, and industrialization also
showed the rice area was more developed, even as far back as 1989,
the earliest county-level data we could find (see Supplemental
Materials and Table 2).
2. Looking at the percentage of farmland devoted to rice paddy in the
1996 Statistical Yearbook, to the south and west is Gansu province
at 0%. To the north is Inner Mongolia at 2%. Even looking at counties along the Yellow River, Lanzhou, Hohhot, and Baotou all
devote less than 1% of farmland to rice paddies. Within Ningxia
Province, rice continues in two counties along the Yellow River
with more than 20% rice (Shizuishan and Yinchuan), but the rest
of the province has near zero rice. Thus, these three counties in
Ningxia really are a rice island in North Central China.
References
Alesina, A., Giuliano, P., & Nunn, N. (2013). On the origins of gender
roles: Women and the plough. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 128, 469–530.
Barkow, J. H., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (2015). The adapted mind:
Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture. New York,
NY: Oxford University Press.
Bray, F. (1986). The rice economies: Technology and development in
Asian societies. New York, NY: Blackwell.
Buck, J. L. (1935). Land utilization in China. Chicago, IL: University
of Chicago Press.
Fei, X. (1945). Earthbound China: A study of rural economy in Yunnan. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Fincher, C. L., Thornhill, R., Murray, D. R., & Schaller, M. (2008).
Pathogen prevalence predicts human cross-cultural variability in
individualism/collectivism. Proceedings Biological Sciences,
275, 1279–1285.
Food and Agriculture Organization/International Institute for Applied
Systems Analysis. (2010). Global agro-ecological zones. Laxenburg, Austria: Author.
Goldschmidt, W. (1971). Independence as an element in pastoral
social systems. Anthropological Quarterly, 44, 132–142.
Greenfield, P. M. (2009). Linking social change and developmental
change: Shifting pathways of human development. Developmental
Psychology, 45, 401–418.
Guyuan Local Chronicles Office. (1993). Guyuan chronicles. Yinchuan, China: Ningxia People’s Publishing House.
Hakim, N., Simons, D. J., Zhao, H., & Wan, X. (2016). Do easterners
and westerners differ in visual cognition? A preregistered examination of three visual cognition tasks. Social Psychological and
Personality Science, 8, 142–152.
Halevy, N., Bornstein, G., & Sagiv, L. (2008). “In-group love” and “outgroup hate” as motives for individual participation in intergroup conflict: A new game paradigm. Psychological Science, 19, 405–411.
Heine, S. J., Lehman, D. R., Peng, K., & Greenholtz, J. (2002). What’s
wrong with cross-cultural comparisons of subjective Likert scales?
The reference-group effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 903–918.
Inglehart, R., & Baker, W. E. (2000). Modernization, cultural change,
and the persistence of traditional values. American Sociological
Review, 65, 19–51.
Inglehart, R., & Norris, P. (2003). Rising tide: Gender equality and
cultural change around the world. New York, NY: Cambridge
University Press.
Ji, L. J., Zhang, Z., & Nisbett, R. E. (2004). Is it culture or is it language? Examination of language effects in cross-cultural research
on categorization. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 87,
57–65.
Kitayama, S., Duffy, S., Kawamura, T., & Larsen, J. T. (2003). Perceiving an object and its context in different cultures: A cultural
look at new look. Psychological Science, 14, 201–206.
Kitayama, S., Park, H., Sevincer, A. T., Karasawa, M., & Uskul, A. K.
(2009). A cultural task analysis of implicit independence: Comparing North America, Western Europe, and East Asia. Journal of
Personality & Social Psychology, 97, 236–255.
Dong et al.
Na, J., Grossmann, I., Varnum, M. E., Kitayama, S., Gonzalez, R., &
Nisbett, R. E. (2010). Cultural differences are not always reducible
to individual differences. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences of the United States of America, 107, 6192–6197.
Nisbett, R. E., & Cohen, D. (1996). Culture of honor: The psychology
of violence in the south. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Norenzayan, A. (2006). Evolution and transmitted culture. Psychological Inquiry, 17, 123–128.
Peng, K., Nisbett, R. E., & Wong, N. Y. (1997). Validity problems
comparing values across cultures and possible solutions. Psychological Methods, 2, 329–344.
Qingtongxia Local Chronicles Office. (2004). Qingtongxia chronicles. Beijing, China: Fangzhi Press.
Richerson, P. J., & Boyd, R. (2005). Not by genes alone. Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press.
Schaller, M., & Park, J. H. (2011). The behavioral immune system
(and why it matters). Current Directions in Psychological Science,
20, 99–103.
Statistical Bureau of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. (1985). Ningxia
statistical yearbook 1985. Beijing, China: China Statisitics Press.
Statistical Bureau of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. (1994). Ningxia statistical yearbook 1994. Beijing, China: China Statisitics
Press.
Statistical Bureau of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region & National
Bureau of Statistics Ningxia Investigation Team. (2014). Ningxia
statistical yearbook 2014. Bejing, China: China Statisitics Press.
Talhelm, T., Haidt, J., Oishi, S., Zhang, X., Miao, F. F., & Chen, S.
(2015). Liberals think more analytically (more “WEIRD”) than
conservatives. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41,
250–267.
Talhelm, T., & Oishi, S. (2018). How rice farming shaped culture in
southern China. In A. K. Uskul & S. Oishi (Eds.), Socioeconomic
environment and human psychology (pp. 53–76). New York, NY:
Oxford University Press.
11
Talhelm, T., Zhang, X., Oishi, S., Shimin, C., Duan, D., Lan, X., &
Kitayama, S. (2014). Large-scale psychological differences within
China explained by rice versus wheat agriculture. Science, 344,
603–608.
Uskul, A. K., Kitayama, S., & Nisbett, R. E. (2008). Ecocultural basis
of cognition: Farmers and fishermen are more holistic than herders.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United
States of America, 105, 8552–8556.
Van De Vliert, E., Yang, H., Wang, Y., & Ren, X. P. (2012). Climatoeconomic imprints on Chinese collectivism. Journal of CrossCultural Psychology, 44, 589–605.
Vaughan, D. A., Lu, B. R., & Tomooka, N. (2008). Was Asian rice
(Oryza sativa) domesticated more than once? Rice, 1, 16–24.
Wang, C. S., Leung, K. Y., See, Y. H. M., & Gao, X. Y. (2011). The
effects of culture and friendship on rewarding honesty and punishing deception. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47,
1295–1299.
Author Biographies
Xiawei Dong has a master’s degree in psychology from the Institute of
Psychology Chinese Academy of Sciences. Her research interests
focus on cultural thought style, subsistence style, and individualism.
Thomas Talhelm is an Assistant Professor of Behavioral Science at
the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Thomas has
lived in China for five years as a Princeton in Asia fellow, a freelance
journalist, and a Fulbright scholar.
Xiaopeng Ren is an Associate Professor of the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing. His research focuses
on individualism/collectivism within and between cultures and the
mechanisms underlying it.
Handling Editor: Will Gervais