We're LIVE! Come join or follow our live tweet thread here! Today we're talking about #BeyondWEIRD and increasing diversity in cross-cultural research.

First topic of discussion: The WEIRDest People in the World paper in BBS 10 years ago led by @JoHenrich. This paper was the basis for the HBES recent special issue.

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Clark Barrett: "There was some magic there [In the WEIRD paper] in the writing and reporting that was persuasive in an actionable way.

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. @bascelza: "The acronym started the conversation"

@DorsaAmir: "There are some drawbacks because the WEIRD non-WEIRD dichotomy can be problematic."

@JoHenrich: "It's important to remember that the WERID acronym was intended to be a consciousness raising device."

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@corenapicella : "Does the WEIRD label exoticize populations

@JoHenrich: "We need to turn the mirror back on WEIRD societies to show that, in fact, they are the weird, exotic societies."

. @corenapicella: "So how are we doing on this topic?"

Clark: "We need to not become complacent in our efforts to increase diversity in research samples. . .there is still a mostly unidirectional flow of ideas from WEIRD researchers."

. @bascelza: "Another kind of polarization that has happened are that people either want to study a small scale society or typical western university students, but most people live in the middle. There's a huge gap there in terms of where people could be working."

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@JoHenrich "We should look at economics, too, because they have really focused on these kinds of societies that we have missed in social science."

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@DorsaAmir : "I want to talk about the diversity of researchers. There are a lot of barriers that are in place against researchers from outside the West. Having to write in english, or conferences only being held in the US or Europe."

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. @DorsaAmir "We need to remember that research questions are not culture free. They don't come from the ether. We need to remember there are downsides to not including those from other backgrounds who could contribute new and different ideas."

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@DorsaAmir : “With industrialization comes homogenization of the decision-making contexts that people operate in. As this continues, It’s really important to learn about diversity now before we begin to lose it.”

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Clark: "We should look at evolutionary phenomena, and ask how does evo science tackle that. There’s a tendency to see these things as quirky manifestations of evolved psychology. We’re doing that instead of treating them as evo phenomena in and of themselves."

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Viewer Question: Besides the need for participant’s variety, could you comment on the need for variety in methodology?

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Answer: @bascelza: “I would really emphasize going back to our anthropological roots and make sure we’re thinking about the methods we’re using in different populations.”

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Answer Clark: "I make a plea for slow science in evolutionary social science. . . to make sure we don’t miss a lot of things in cross-cultural research.”

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Answer: @DorsaAmir: "I think there's a runaway selection for cross-cultural sites. Outside of anthropology there's a lot of value ascribed to number of sites. But there is a real trade-off between depth and breadth."

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Question: Should students study anthropology or psychology if interested in human evolution?

@johenrich: “We should start more departments in human evolution so we can have training in both!”

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Question: How can the younger generation get into field work?

Clark: “The dirty secret in anthropology is that there is a lot more accident involved in getting to work with the populations we do.”

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Question @ProfDavidBuss : “How do panelists think about 'levels of abstraction'? ... at one level, it looks like infinite cultural variability, but at a higher level, these are all modes of 'resource acquisition.'?"

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Answer: @JoHenrich : You need a good theory!”

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Answer @bascelza: "There can be aspects of both. If you can get to the root of what the theory is saying, then unpack what is going on behind the scenes. Then go back to the theory and iterate on identifying the variation at these different levels.”

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Audience Q: Practically, do the panelists have suggestions for how groups like HBES can help to advance cross-cultural work for researchers who do not necessarily come from such traditions and do not have the established logistics that many anthropologists do?
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Answer @bascelza: “One answer is to rely on people that you know have long-term field sites. But it puts a lot of pressure on those few people that have put a lot of work in to developing those relationships and logistics at those sites.”

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Answer @corenapicella: “We need to also remember the pressure on the populations that have to engage in all of these studies, too!”

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Answer Clark: “Ask yourself, do you need to go to Africa, Asia, etc? If you need to, great, but you can do a lot of work with what is around you too! But you need to get away from college samples and Mturk. There are a lot of different populations around you.”

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@DorsaAmir: “I think there are important ethical considerations to more and more people doing work with these populations. The answer may not be more people, but more people seeing the value in the cross-cultural work that is already being done.”

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Clark: “One advantage to increasing the diversity and representations of researchers in HBES is that we can then do research in the populations that are already around us. So that is one solution to increasing the diversity of our research samples.”

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And that's a wrap! Thanks to the 136 people that joined! (WOW!) This has been a great discussion. We appreciate the organizers @corenapicella + @kris_m_smith @EvoCourtney + Paul Deutchman and our panelists, @JoHenrich + @bascelza + @DorsaAmir + Clark Barrett.

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