Cultural DNA. Bains Gurnek

has been rapid and intense evolution since modern humans left Africa that affects a diverse range of attributes, such as food tolerance, disease resistance, and energy metabolism. From the point of view of psychological differences, there is now extensive evidence of profound variations across different groups in some of the genes that determine both the level and uptake of key neurotransmitters. These findings are relatively new and still in the process of being tested and replicated. However, some differences do appear robust. For example, the serotonin transporter gene, which affects the level of serotonin in the brain by influencing the same functions that the drug Prozac impacts, has both short and long allele versions. Individuals with the short alleles are more prone to anxiety and depression following negative life events. A variety of other behavioral and psychological traits are also associated with the presence of short alleles. Now something like 80 percent of people in China have the short allele versus 40 percent in the United States and 25 percent in South Africa.16

      Similarly, a gene called DRD4, which influences dopamine levels in the brain, also has short and long alleles. Individuals with the long alleles are more adventurous, novelty seeking, independent minded, rebellious, as well as hyperactive – and something like 75 percent of South American Indians possess the long allele version. The figures for the United States are in the region of 30 percent and in Europe 20 percent or so. In China the rate of the long allele is close to 0 percent.17 Similarly, large differences are seen in genes that influence the opioid system, which, as well as being associated with perceptions of pain and well-being, is also associated with emotional reactions to disruption of social bonds. When northern Europeans see Italian or Spanish soccer players react as if they have been mortally wounded at the slightest physical impact, it may not just be histrionic acting out – the poor guy writhing on the ground to boos from the crowd may actually be biologically more sensitive to pain.

      The latter point illustrates something more important. If a small number of the differences observed between cultures reflect such biological factors, it may be wiser to recognize this fact rather than to pretend otherwise. At the very least, this can absolve individuals from personal blame, as well as lead to greater empathy, when their reactions or behaviors are not in accordance with what other groups expect. In addition, overwhelmingly most genetic adaptations, as will be reviewed later, arose first because of cultural change, which then drove differential selection; a kind of culture-gene coevolution.

      Why Bother with Differences?

      Even if differences exist, why bother focusing on them as opposed to what we have in common? We are in many senses a co-operative species – but once even small group differences are introduced, elements of wariness, suspicion and frequently hostility ensue. Social Psychologist Henri Tajfel graphically illustrated this in his minimal-group experiment in which he was able to engender surprisingly high levels of intergroup rivalry and discord simply by artificially dividing people between those who liked a particular artist or not.18 Anyone who doubts the power of trivial group differences to elicit powerful emotions can simply observe the dynamics between groups of teenagers at high school or go and see a soccer match just about anywhere in the world.

      Another thing that makes discussion of group differences sensitive is that there is an automatic belief that merely identifying differences involves ordering groups of people hierarchically. People who repudiate all talk of difference seem to do so because they actually hold the implicit, but unacknowledged, view that in any comparison non-Westerners will come out for the worse. If, however, you accept the argument that different groups' psychological instincts are actually finely tuned to the environment in which they are required to survive – and that fundamentally all groups have qualities that play out for good or ill in different situations – discussing differences becomes less emotionally loaded.

      Nothing illustrates the gravitational pull of immutable hierarchical thinking better than the whole controversial field of intelligence quotients (IQ) and race – which is the natural place many go to when thinking about group differences. Books like The Bell Curve19 and, more recently, A Troublesome Inheritance fall into this trap.20 The first point to make is that standard IQ scores, thought to be relatively fixed in populations, have been changing quickly the world over – the so-called Flynn effect. James Flynn found, for example, that IQ scores had risen by about three points per decade for several decades – this may seem small but actually makes a massive difference over just a few decades.21 Diet, the spread of technology, control of infectious disease, as well as familiarity with IQ tests themselves, have all been hypothesized as leading to these improved scores. Different groups show different levels of this effect, and some developed countries appear to have stopped improving. It is likely that many developing countries will continue to post sharp rises and, until things have leveled out, nobody can make accurate statements about intergroup differences.22

      More importantly, there is inevitably a danger in applying tests developed in one culture to others that might see the world very differently. Each culture's intellectual orientation is finely attuned to the ecology of the environment and the survival challenges that that culture has faced. Therefore, nobody is more or less intelligent than another in a fundamental sense; they are just different. The analytical/logical/structured approach so beloved by Western academic researchers is only one way of looking at intellect. It ignores wisdom, judgment, creativity and intellectual flexibility as well as emotional intelligence. The ecology of the new global environment will lead to a greater convergence of scores with respect to standard Western measures, as well as leading to many non-Western modes of intelligence becoming more and more valued and appreciated – thus challenging the notion of hierarchy.

      Another reason for focusing on and helping to explain differences is to aid cultures in developing greater levels of empathy and respect for each other. Psychologically, since humans are one of the most social species in the animal kingdom, the development of empathy is one of the most important tasks that a person faces. Surprisingly, if one maps brain size against body mass, most species fall on a fairly tight curve. There are a few species that are clear outliers in that they have much bigger brains than their body size would indicate. Humans are one and apes, as well as dolphins are others. The clue to what is common lies in the two nonmammalian species that have much bigger brains than they should; ants and bees. All the outlier species are highly social. This leads to a natural conclusion that at least in part our large brains exist as tools for navigating our interpersonal environment.

      There has been much research in recent years on the importance of mirror neurons in our brains that fire sympathetically when we observe people doing things or experiencing certain emotions. These were accidentally discovered by the Italian researchers Giacomo Rizzolatti and his colleagues at the University of Parma while studying the firing of individual motor neurons in the brains of Macaque monkeys as the monkeys reached for food. The researchers found to their surprise that some of these neurons started to fire when the monkey saw the experimenters handling food. Thus was born the idea of mirror neurons that is, neurons that fire sympathetically when we see an action or an emotion in others.23 At some level we experience the same neuronal activation that the person we are watching does and this drives both learning and empathy.

      Many believe that research on mirror neurons represents one of the most significant recent breakthroughs in psychology. It is possible that as many as 10 percent of the neurons in the human brain may have mirror neuron type properties. Neuropsychologist V. S. Ramachandran says, “These are the neurons that changed the world,” and argues that the significant presence of mirror neurons in humans is the very basis of our culture and civilization.24

      However, what is really shocking about mirror neuron research is what happens when we observe people from groups different from our own. In one experiment, psychologists showed white people videos of a white hand being pricked by a needle. As expected, people's reactions showed evidence of mirror neurons firing in the relevant parts of their brains.

16

K. P. Lesch et al., “Association of Anxiety-Related Traits with a Polymorphism in the Serotonin Transporter Gene Regulatory Region,” Science 274 (1996): 1527–1531.

17

C. Chen, M. Burton, E. Greenberg, and J. Dmitrieva, “Population Migration and the Variation of Dopamine D4 Receptor (DRD4) Allele Frequencies around the Globe,” Evolution and Human Behaviour 20 (1999): 309–324.

18

See Henri Tajfel, Human Groups and Social Categories: Studies in Social Psychology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981).

19

Richard Hernstein and Charles Murray, The Bell Curve (New York: Free Press, 1994).

20

Nicholas Wade, A Troublesome Inheritance (New York: Penguin Books, 2014).

21

James R. Flynn, Are We Getting Smarter? Rising IQ in the Twenty First Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

22

T.W. Teasdale and D.R.Owen, “Secular Declines in Cognitive Test Performance: A Reversal of the Flynn Effect,” Intelligence 36 (2008): 121-126.

23

G. Rizzolatti and L. Craighero, “The Mirror Neuron System Review,” Neuroscience 27 (2004): 169–192.

24

V. Ramachandran, The Neurons that Shaped Civilization, TED Talks Online, 2009, www.ted.com/talks/vs_ramachandran_the_neurons_that_shaped_civilization?language=en.