PREFACE..........................................................................................................................................................xi
PRELUDE: YOUR BRAIN HAS BEEN MODIFIED..................................................................................03
What God Wants..........................................................................................................................................................07
The Histories of Religions, Biologies, and Psychologies...............................................................16
Part I: The Evolution of Societies and Psychologies
CHAPTER 1: WEIRD PSYCHOLOGY.........................................................................................................21
Really, Who Are You?................................................................................................................................................24
Marshmallows Come to Those Who Wait................................................................................................38
UN Diplomats Get Parking Tickets.................................................................................................................41
Obsessed with Intentions......................................................................................................................................49
Missing the Forest........................................................................................................................................................52
The Rest of the Iceberg...........................................................................................................................................55
CHAPTER 2: MAKING A CULTURAL SPECIES......................................................................................59
Evolved to Learn...........................................................................................................................................................61
Evolving Societies........................................................................................................................................................68
Avenues into Your Mind...........................................................................................................................................82
CHAPTER 3: CLANS, STATES AND WHY YOU CAN’T GET HERE FROM THERE......................87
How Ilahita Got Big......................................................................................................................................................88
When, How, and Why Did Societies Scale Up?...................................................................................103
Getting to Premodern States..............................................................................................................................112
Going End Around.......................................................................................................................................................121
CHAPTER 4: THE GODS ARE WATCHING. BEHAVE!........................................................................123
Moralizing Gods and Contingent Afterlives............................................................................................128
The Evolution of Gods and Rituals.................................................................................................................139
Hell, Free Will, and Moral Universalism.....................................................................................................146
Persuasive Martyrs and Boring Rituals.......................................................................................................148
The Launch Pad............................................................................................................................................................151
Part II: The Origins of WEIRD People
CHAPTER 5: WEIRD FAMILIES................................................................................................................155
Dissolving the Traditional Family.....................................................................................................................159
The Carolingians, Manorialism, and the European Marriage Pattern..................................186
Downstream Transformations............................................................................................................................191
CHAPTER 6: PSYCHOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES, FAMILIES, AND THE CHURCH......................193
Kinship Intensity and Psychology...................................................................................................................194
The Church Altered Kinship and Changed Psychology................................................................224
Opening the Floodgates.......................................................................................................................................230
CHAPTER 7: EUROPE AND ASIA............................................................................................................233
The Church's Footprints.........................................................................................................................................234
Psychological Differences Within China and India............................................................................244
Fertile Ground................................................................................................................................................................252
CHAPTER 8: WEIRD MONOGAMY..........................................................................................................255
A "Peculiar" Institution..............................................................................................................................................258
Polygyny's Math Problem16................................................................................................................................263
A Testosterone Suppression System...........................................................................................................268
Trust, Teamwork, and Crime................................................................................................................................274
Putting the Pieces Together................................................................................................................................281
Part III: New Institutions, New Psychologies
CHAPTER 9: OF COMMERCE AND COOPERATION..........................................................................287
Market Integration and Impersonal Prosociality.................................................................................290
"No Hui, No Market Towns"..................................................................................................................................301
The Commercial and Urban Revolutions.................................................................................................307
Round Up..........................................................................................................................................................................320
CHAPTER 10: DOMESTICATING THE COMPETITION.......................................................................322
War, Religion, and Psychology.........................................................................................................................322
Europeans Made War, and War Made Them WEIRDer................................................................332
Taming Intergroup Conflict.................................................................................................................................340
When and Why?.........................................................................................................................................................350
Harnessing the Power of Competition.......................................................................................................357
CHAPTER 11: MARKET MENTALITIES..................................................................................................360
How Work Became Virtuous.............................................................................................................................367
Be Yourself: The Origins of WEIRD Personalities..............................................................................379
It's Big, but How Big?..............................................................................................................................................390
Part IV: Birthing the Modern World
CHAPTER 12: LAW, SCIENCE AND RELIGION....................................................................................395
Universal Laws, Conflicting Principles, and Individual Rights..................................................398
Representative Governments and Democracy...................................................................................407
The WEIRDest Religion..........................................................................................................................................415
Dark Matter or Enlightenment?........................................................................................................................427
CHAPTER 13: ESCAPE VELOCITY..........................................................................................................430
Writing Up the Collective Brain......................................................................................................................442
More Inventive?..........................................................................................................................................................460
Psychology and Innovation in the Modern World...........................................................................465
Escaping the Trap....................................................................................................................................................466
CHAPTER 14: THE DARK MATTER OF HISTORY..............................................................................469
Guns, Germs, and Other Factors....................................................................................................................474
Globalization and Its Discontents.................................................................................................................484