TLDR; - WEIRD as a concept in psychology shows how we see the subject through a Western lense. Emotions may not be innate and also are subject to a Western prejudice.
An interesting part of my PSYC100 textbook declared that, to date, psychological writings and research have focused on WEIRD subjects, where WEIRD stands for: White, Educated, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic. I was interested to see the same in a Douglas Todd column where he reviewed the Joseph Henrich book 'The WEIRDest people in the world'. (It turns out the author and his colleagues napkined out the concept at a Chinese takeout lunch at a basement food court at UBC. Hey, I had lunch there quite often. Yes, Jane. I used napkin as a verb.)
As Douglas Todd notes '...more than 96 per cent of experiments in social psychology were based on subjects who are WEIRD.'
And Henrich himself says that my PSYC100 textbook should be renamed: “Textbooks that purport to be about ‘Psychology’ or “Social Psychology’ need to be retitled something like ‘The Cultural Psychology of Late 20th-Century Americans.’ ”
Basically, this says that all of our psychology is culturally biased. This a contest between 'cultural' subjectivism and objectivism. That is, is it really possible to develop a psychology for all humans, or are we so affected by our societies and cultures that we're beyond this? Are we committing cultural or psychological anthromorphism by projecting our WEIRD viewpoint on other cultures? Once you open this door, it's hard not to see it everywhere. (The AI behind Siri written by WEIRD computer programmers? Does the word 'systemic' now take on more gravitas?)
Contrast this with my other reading (acting as a pseudo-TA for Jane): How Emotions are Made (Lisa Feldman Barrett). The premise of the book is to disavow the 'classical' view of emotions: that there are 6 basic emotions that are innate (biological, like instincts), that are common across all cultures. Here we go again! The argument against this view considers emotions as constructed by our brains, not triggered like instincts.
However, for this essay, the interesting part of the book is the premise that there is no basis for limiting emotions to the famous six. It turns out that the first experiments studying emotions (approx 50 years ago) were based on Darwin's theory that facial expressions hold the key, and from this, six emotions became defined as representative of all basic emotions, and we've been stuck with them ever since! Very weird.
Even studies of emotions in foreign cultures who have not had contact with the West are compromised, as the researchers reject from the study any emotions that they don't recognize. There could be a multitude of emotions in those cultures that our narrow six-pack of emotions can't fathom. And even further, are we in the West now constrained to these six emotions? Can we not now think outside the box we've put ourselves in?
Not sure where we go from here. The PSYC textbook, although identifying the WEIRD syndrome, does nothing to counter it. How could it? where do you start? And the emotions book is just getting started with creating a new theory of emotions after blowing up the old one.
But I should probably stop this now, and get back to studying for the midterm.
References:
https://psychology.pressbooks.tru.ca
https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-youre-most-likely-weird-and-you-dont-even-know-it
https://lisafeldmanbarrett.com/books/how-emotions-are-made/
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