My research into the forager-farmer hypothesis (i.e. that our temperaments are based on evolutionary subsistence strategies) has, again and again, led me to the work of two researchers in geographical psychology: Jason Rentfrow and Markus Jokela, who both use the Big Five personality inventory for their research. While the Big Five aren’t the best indicator of past subsistence strategies, I have associated extreme values of conscientiousness with farming, extraversion (including risk-taking and assertiveness) with pastoralism and openness with foraging (this is the least intuitive of the three associations for which I have given reasons in several articles).
Extroverts (E) tend to be more assertive, energetic, enthusiastic and sociable, and previous research has linked extraversion with physical health and wellbeing, leadership and occupational performance. People who are high in conscientiousness (C) tend to have a stronger sense of duty, responsibility and self-discipline, and research has shown that this trait is linked with career and educational success, longevity and conservatism. According to the study, conscientiousness reflects the degree to which residents of an area are socially conservative, nonviolent, and physically healthy. Conscientious individuals were more likely to be married, older and on a higher income, with lower rates of deaths from cancer and heart disease. At an individual level, openness (O) represents creativity, curiosity, imagination, and intellect, and is associated with pursuing a career that involves creativity, living an unconventional lifestyle, earning a college degree and supporting liberal attitudes. According to the study, openness was positively related to residents with university education, income, prevalence of high-status professionals, foreign-born residents, same-sex couples, and rates of violent crime. Overall, the results suggested that regions with large numbers of highly open people were cosmopolitan, economically prosperous, and liberal. (source)
Geographical psychology has a great potential to explain evolutionary and migratory patterns, as well as some predictive potential (e.g. conscientious areas tend to vote conservative, and be “tight” in Michele Gelfand’s terminology, whereas areas high in openness tend to vote liberal, be “loose” and more culturally diverse). Some patterns are pretty straightforward: big cities like London (see map above) attract extraverts (more stimulation and fun) and people high in openness (more cultural diversity, who are not merely consumers of innovations but also their producers).
However, other patterns seem a bit paradoxical: London is very low in conscientiousness, which to some degree is worrisome as it is also an indicator of possibly higher crime rates. Indeed, inner cities do have higher crime rates pretty much everywhere compared to suburban and rural areas. Also, why do conscientious people, who on average have higher academic and professional attainment, prefer the countryside and the suburbs with their lack of tertiary education and career possibilities? The forager-farmer framework provides some interesting clues: if C originates from adaptation to farming and includes such preferences as conservatism, being tied to a local tight-knit community, preference for uniformity (probably an adaptation to be more quickly able to distinguish between potential allies and foes), it becomes clear why C tends to remain in rural areas. C who moves into the cities for work and becomes rich tends to migrate out of the inner city again, which accounts for the phenomenon of the modern, highly uniform suburb.
High E, originating from pastoralism, tends to prefer open spaces, which is in line with pastoralist tendencies to seek open plains for pasture. E is likely to prefer bigger houses, bigger cars, and bigger everything (achievement orientation). This is one of the reasons why everything is bigger in America than in the UK. Emigrants to the USA were much more likely to have been high than low in E (higher risk-taking). Also, the American South with its honour culture has been hypothesised to have its origins in European pastoralist genes. The American “cowboy culture” with its focus on masculinity is also related to pastoralist genes.
On the basis of these traits, one might think that C (industriousness) and E (achievement) may be the best indicators of prosperity. They are not, it's O. The most prosperous areas tend to be the ones high in O and therefore also in innovation. The map below shows admixture of early European farmers. Not surprisingly we can see in it also a map of early high civilizations (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, etc.) However, to some extent, we can also see the prosperous North - poor South divide we often find nowadays: Northern Europe vs Southern Europe, but also within countries like Italy and Spain (the richest region is the Basque Country with the lowest farmer admixture and highest forager admixture). Foragers are not known to innovate as they are generally perfectly happy if they are allowed to practice their way of life. However, forager type people would face strong selective pressures if they lived in a farmer world.
One may argue that the forager-farmer framework, while perhaps being able to explain the geographic distribution of psychological traits, may be useless as due to genetic mixing there is no such thing as a pure forager, pastoralist or farmer type. This is certainly true to some extent, however, there is strong assortative mating and homophily among those traits, which would keep them somewhat “bundled”. People tend to settle in areas with neighbours who are similar to themselves. They don’t need to send out surveys for doing so, there are plenty of clues: clean-cut lawns all around are a sign of high C, a lot of ethnic minorities are signs of high O, the presence of clubs, sports facilities, etc. a sign of E. We know that in ancient times people tended to form quarters in cities based on their occupations (which were also highly influenced by their personalities).
James C. Scott in The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (2010) describes highlanders who resisted state integration for the longest time in history. These highlanders were mostly likely pastoralist and forager types. Pastoralists have always existed on the edge of farmer civilizations (often described as “barbarians”) and foragers (“savages”) had to retreat to the least accessible fringe geographic areas, such as deserts, forests, mountains and islands. This would explain why in Britain we see high levels of O in remote areas such as the Cambrian Mountains (Wales) and the Scottish Islands (Hebrides, Orkney). Even nowadays the last remaining pastoralists and foragers find it hard to integrate into states; they are simply not adapted to hierarchy, structure and routine work like farmer types are. Also, among men, the level of conflict and aggression would be higher in such a farmer world, which partly accounts for inner-city violence and higher imprisonment rates of pastoralist and forager types.
So, when I talk about forager/farmer/pastoralist types, I understand them rather as a heuristic for finding underlying tendencies rather than as fixed types, which indeed makes little sense. The forager-farmer framework may shed light on many more phenomena, such as why southerners tend to be more extraverted than northerners, who are generally more reserved, and it may have much less to do with climate than many people assume.
For more information on the evolution of the three tribes check out my book Foragers, Farmers and Pastoralists : How three tribes have been shaping civilization since the Neolithic
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08ZR3KPVH
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