Genes, Culture, and Gender PDF

Genes, Culture, and Gender CH5APTER hadynyah/E+/Getty Images “By birth, the same; by custom, different.” —Confucius, The Analects of Confucius The preceding chapters were about how we think about one another. The next chapters are about how we influence and relate to one another. We will probe socia...

Genes, Culture, and Gender CH5APTER hadynyah/E+/Getty Images “By birth, the same; by custom, different.” —Confucius, The Analects of Confucius The preceding chapters were about how we think about one another. The next chapters are about how we influence and relate to one another. We will probe social psychology’s central concern: the powers of social influence. What are these unseen social forces that push and pull us? How powerful are they? Research on social influence helps illuminate the invisible strings by which our social worlds move us about. In this chapter, we consider three related topics: biological influ- ences, cultural influences, and gender differences. For most of human history, fighting wars was the sole province of men. But as cultures have become more open to gender equality, that has changed. The speed How are we influenced by biology? How are we influenced by culture? How are females and males alike and different? What can we conclude about genes, culture, and gender? Concluding Thoughts: Should we view ourselves as products of our biology or our culture? mye88533_ch05_104-133.indd 104 6/4/21 10:51 AM Genes, Culture, and Gender Chapter 5 105 of change has also varied from one culture to another. While women in some countries such as Israel have served in combat roles since the 1970s, other countries, such as Pakistan, do not allow women to serve in combat roles today (Army Technology, 2018; Neuman, 2013). Around the world, significantly more men than women serve in militaries, and most countries do not draft women to serve (DeSilver, 2019). In the United States, women first served in military combat roles in 2015, and in 2020 a bipartisan commission recommended that women be required to register for a military draft (Welna, 2020). Thinking about the roles of women in the military around the world prompts us to consider the questions we explore in this chapter: How much does biology shape who we are? How are we influenced by culture? And how do the influences of biology and culture combine to create similarities and differences among men and women? HOW ARE WE INFLUENCED BY BIOLOGY? Describe how the biological perspective explains human behavior, including gender differences. In many important ways, people from different cultures and of different genders are more alike than different. As members of one great family with common ancestors, we share not only a common biology but also common behavioral tendencies. Everyone sleeps and wakes, feels hunger and thirst, and develops language through identical mechanisms. Every- where, humans prefer sweet tastes to sour and fear snakes more than sparrows. People across the globe all understand each other’s frowns and smiles. Humans are intensely social. We join groups, conform, and recognize distinctions of social status. We return favors, punish offenses, and grieve a loved one’s death. As children, beginning at about 8 months of age, we displayed fear of strangers, and as adults, we favor members of our own groups. Confronted by those with dissimilar attitudes or attributes, we react warily or negatively. Anthropologist Donald Brown (1991, 2000) identified several hundred universal behavior and language patterns. To sample among just those beginning with “v,” all human societies have verbs, violence, visiting, and vowels. Even much of our morality is common across cultures and eras. Before they can walk, babies will display a moral sense by disapproving of what’s wrong or naughty (Bloom, 2010). People old and young, female and male, whether living in Tokyo, Tehran, or Toledo, all say “no” when asked, “If a lethal gas is leaking into a vent and is headed toward a room with seven people, is it okay to push someone into the vent — preventing the gas from reach- ing the seven but killing the one?” And they are more likely to say “yes” when asked if it’s okay to allow someone to fall into the vent, voluntarily sacrificing one life but saving seven (Hauser, 2006, 2009). You could drop in anywhere and find humans conversing and arguing, laughing and crying, feasting and dancing, singing and worshiping. Everywhere, humans prefer living with others — in families and communal groups — to living alone. Everywhere, the family dramas that entertain us — from Greek tragedies to Chinese fiction to Mexican soap operas — portray similar plots (Dutton, 2006). Similar, too, are adventure stories in which strong and coura- geous men, supported by wise old people, overcome evil to the delight of beautiful women or threatened children. Such commonalities define our shared human nature. Although differences draw our attention, we’re more alike than different. We’re all kin beneath the skin. mye88533_ch05_104-133.indd 105 6/4/21 10:51 AM 106 Part Two Social Influence natural selection The evolutionary process by which heritable traits that best enable organisms to survive and reproduce in particular environments are passed to ensuing generations. evolutionary psychology The study of the evolution of cognition and behavior using principles of natural selection. Genes, Evolution, and Behavior The universal behaviors that define human nature arise from our biological similarity. Some- one may say, “My ancestors came from Ireland” or “My roots are in China” or “I’m Italian,” but if we trace our ancestors back 100,000 or more years, we are all Africans (Shipman, 2003). In response to climate change and the availability of food, early hominids migrated across Africa into Asia, Europe, the Australian subcontinent and, eventually, the Americas. As they adapted to their new environments, early humans developed differences that, mea- sured on anthropological scales, are recent and superficial. Those who stayed in Africa had darker skin pigment — what Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker (2002) called “sunscreen for the tropics” — and those who went far north of the equator evolved lighter skins capable of synthesizing vitamin D in less direct sunlight. We were all Africans recently enough that “there has not been much time to accumulate many new versions of the genes,” noted Pinker (2002, p. 143). Indeed, biologists who study our genes have found that we humans — even humans from very different cultures — are strik- ingly similar, like members of one tribe. To explain the traits of our species, and all species, the British naturalist Charles Darwin (1859) proposed an evolutionary process. Follow the genes, he advised. Darwin’s idea, to which philosopher Daniel Dennett (2005) would give “the gold medal for the best idea anybody ever had,” was that natural selection enables evolution. The idea, simplified, is this: ▯ Organisms have many and varied offspring. ▯ Those offspring compete for survival in their environment. ▯ Certain biological and behavioral variations increase their chances of survival and reproduction in that environment. ▯ Those offspring that do survive and reproduce are more likely to pass their genes to ensuing generations. ▯ Thus, over time, population characteristics may change. Natural selection implies that certain genes — those producing traits that increased the odds of surviving long enough to reproduce and nurture descendants — became more abun- dant. In the snowy Arctic environment, for example, genes programming a thick coat of camouflaging white fur have won the genetic competition among bears. Where thick, dark forest is instead the norm, brown and black bears have instead won out. Natural selection, long an organizing principle of biology, is an important principle for psychology as well. Evolutionary psychology studies how natural selection also predisposes psychological traits and social behaviors that enhance the preservation and spread of one’s genes (Buss & Schmitt, 2019). Humans are the way we are, say evolutionary psychologists, because nature selected those who had advantageous traits — those who, for example, preferred the sweet taste of nutritious, energy-providing foods and who disliked the bitter Evolutionary psychology argues that modern human brains are a product of what helped our hunter-gatherer ancestors survive. Sproetniek/Getty Images or sour flavors of toxic foods. Those lacking such preferences were less likely to survive to contribute their genes to posterity. As mobile gene machines, we carry not only the physical legacy but also the psychological legacy of our ancestors’ adaptive prefer- ences. We long for whatever helped our ancestors survive, repro- duce, and nurture their offspring to survive and reproduce. Even negative emotions — anxiety, loneliness, depression, anger — are nature’s way of motivating us to cope with survival challenges. “The purpose of the heart is to pump blood,” noted evolutionary psy- chologist David Barash (2003). “The brain’s purpose,” he contin- ued, is to direct our organs and our behavior “in a way that maximizes our evolutionary success. That’s it.” The evolutionary perspective highlights our universal human nature. We not only share certain food preferences, but we also share answers to social questions, such as, Whom should I trust? Whom should I help? When, and with whom, should I mate? Who may dominate me, and whom may I control? Evolutionary psychologists mye88533_ch05_104-133.indd 106 6/4/21 10:51 AM Genes, Culture, and Gender contend that our emotional and behavioral answers to those questions are the same answers that worked for our ancestors. And what should we fear? Mostly, we fear dangers faced by our distant ancestors. We fear foes, unfamiliar faces, and heights — and thus, possible terrorists, the ethnically differ- ent, and airplanes. We fear what’s immediate and sudden more than greater, gradual harms from historically newer threats, such as smoking or climate change. Because our social tasks are common to people everywhere, humans everywhere tend to agree on the answers. For example, all humans rank others by authority and status. And all have ideas about economic justice (Fiske, 1992). Evolutionary psychologists highlight these universal characteristics that have evolved through natural selection. Cultures, how- ever, provide the specific rules for working out these elements of social life. Biology and Gender Visit an elementary school playground at recess and take note of how the boys and girls behave. More of the boys will be running or jumping and might even physically fight with each other when the playground monitor isn’t looking. More of the girls will be playing in small groups and talking to each other. Here’s what you might wonder: Are these differences due to biology (and thus tied to our evolutionary past) or instead a product of upbringing and culture (and thus something that varies by region and era)? Gender differences are one of the most researched and contentious areas of psychology, so we will use them as our primary example to illustrate how biology and culture interact to make us who we are. We’ll begin by discussing biology as it relates to gender differences. TERMS FOR STUDYING SEX AND GENDER First, let’s define some terms. Many people use the terms “sex” and “gender” interchange- ably, but in psychology, they refer to different things. Sex refers to males and females as two biological categories based on chromosomes, genitals, and secondary sex characteristics such as greater male muscle mass and female breasts. Gender instead refers to the characteristics people associate with males and females that can be rooted in biology, culture, or both, such as wearing dresses, liking sports, having long hair, wanting more sexual partners, being more physically aggressive, or liking to shop. The differences in behavior on the preschool playground are gendered behaviors; whether each child is biologically male or female is their sex. Not that long ago, gender and sex were seen as fairly rigid: There were only two sexes, and if someone was born female, she stayed female and usually enacted female gender roles. All of these ideas are now being challenged in one way or another. Until very recently, most cultures delivered a strong message: Everyone must be assigned a sex, and there were only two choices. When an intersex child was born with a combination of male and female sex organs (known as ambiguous genitalia), physicians and the family felt compelled to assign the child a sex by diminishing the ambiguity surgically. Between day and night, there is dusk. Between hot and cold, there is warm. But between male and female there has been, socially speaking, essentially nothing (Sanz, 2017). That is not as true now. Many doctors now advise that surgery for ambiguous genitalia be postponed until the child expresses whether they identify as a boy or a girl. No matter what their physical appearance, some people identify as gender fluid or as nonbinary, wishing to be identified as neither male or female (Broussard et al., 2018). The concept has a longer history than you might think; throughout the centuries, many cultures have recognized third genders (Scobey-Thal, 2014). Defining who is male and who is female is also not as clear-cut as it sounds: Do you use chromosomes? Body appearance? Hormone levels? Sometimes these disagree in the same person. In 2019, a court ruled that Olympic runner Caster Seme- nya, who was born and identifies as female, must take drugs to suppress her naturally higher levels of testosterone, a hormone found in larger quantities among men. Some have argued that Semenya’s higher testosterone levels gave her an unfair advantage in competing against other women. This is one of many controversial cases centering around how to define sex categories in women’s sports (Burns, 2019). Chapter 5 107 “Psychology will be based on a new foundation.” —Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 1859 sex The two biological categories of male and female. gender In psychology, the characteristics, whether biological or socially influenced, that we associate with males and females. mye88533_ch05_104-133.indd 107 6/4/21 10:51 AM 108 Part Two Social Influence Born Bruce Jenner, Caitlyn Jenner lived most of her life as a man before she transitioned to live as a woman in 2015. Joe Seer/Shutterstock transgender Someone whose psychological sense of being male or female differs from their birth sex. “A hen is only an egg’s way of making another egg.” —Samuel Butler (1835–1901) What attracts you to someone? Both men and women value kindness, but gender differences appear in valuing physical appearance and status. Sam Edwards/OJO Images/age fotostock In addition, some people (about 4 in 1,000 Americans) are transgender — those whose sense of being male or female differs from their birth sex (APA, 2012; Meerwijk & Sevelius, 2017). A trans person may feel like a woman in a man’s body or a man in a woman’s body. Being transgender is not the same as having atypical gender roles; for example, some women have short hair, don’t like to shop, and like sports, but still have a fundamental belief that their sex is female. A transgender person who was born female might have any constellation of gender roles but has a fundamental sense of actually being male. When he is ready to transition, he may start living as a man. Some transgender people choose to have surgery to change their sex to fit their identity, but others do not change their bodies but instead present socially as their chosen sex (Testa et al., 2017). For example, Thomas Beatie was born female, lived as a man as an adult, and kept his female reproductive organs, birthing three children (Abbey, 2012). In this section, we’ll explore evolutionary and biological explanations for gender differences. We’ll detail the research on gender differences later in the chapter. For now, consider this well-researched difference: Men think about sex more, masturbate more, and desire a greater number of sexual partners (Baumeister et al., 2001; Petersen & Hyde, 2011). The question is: Why? GENDER AND MATING PREFERENCES Evolutionary psychology posits a fairly straightforward answer to this question: Men have stronger sex drives because sex is a cheap investment for men and a big commitment for women. Men and women, note evolutionary psychologists, faced different adaptive challenges when it came to sex and reproduction (Buss, 1995b, 2009). (These ideas are not without controversy; later in this section, we’ll explore challenges to this point of view.) Thus, say evolutionary psychologists, females invest their reproductive opportunities care- fully, by looking for signs of resources and commitment. Males compete with other males for chances to win the genetic sweepstakes by sending their genes into the future and thus look for healthy, fertile soil in which to plant their seed. Women want to find men who will help them tend the garden — resourceful and monogamous dads rather than wandering cads. Women seek to reproduce wisely, men widely. Or so the theory goes. Evolutionary psychology also suggests that those preschool boys fighting with each other on the playground might be in a dress rehearsal for a more serious game. Over much of human history, physically dominant males excelled in gaining access to females, which over generations enhanced male aggression and dominance as the less-aggressive males had fewer chances to reproduce. The genes that may have helped Montezuma II to become Aztec king were also given to his offspring, with the help of the 4,000 women in his harem (Wright, 1998). Geng- his Khan, who led invasions that brought much of Asia under his empire, is an ancestor of approximately 1 in 200 men worldwide (Zerjal, 2003). Even today, men are more aggressive toward other men when they are thinking about dating and mating (Ainsworth & Maner, 2012, 2014). Underlying all these presumptions is a principle: Nature selects traits that help send one’s genes into the future. Little of this process is conscious. Few people in the throes of passion stop to think, “I want to give my genes to posterity.” Rather, say evolutionary psychologists, our natural yearnings are our genes’ way of making more genes. Emotions execute evolution’s disposi- tions, much as hunger executes the body’s need for nutrients. “Every living human is a descendant of a long line of successful maters,” says evolutionary psychologist David Buss (Kluger, 2020). “We’ve adapted to pick certain types of mates and to fulfill the desires of the opposite sex.” And that, evolutionary psychologists believe, helps explain not only male aggression but also the differing sexual attitudes and behaviors of females and males. mye88533_ch05_104-133.indd 108 29/06/21 12:31 PM Genes, Culture, and Gender Chapter 5 109 Evolutionary psychology also predicts that women will prefer men with the resources to help with the labor-intensive and expensive process of raising a child to full adulthood. Thus, men will strive to offer what women will desire — external resources and physical protection. Male peacocks strut their feathers; male humans, their abs, Audis, and assets (Sundie et al., 2011). In one experiment, teen males rated “having lots of money” as more important after they were put alone in a room with a teen female (Roney, 2003). In one Cardiff, Wales, study, men rated a woman as equally attractive whether she was at the wheel of a humble Ford Fiesta or a swanky Bentley; women found the man more attractive if he was in the luxury car (Dunn & Searle, 2010). “Male achievement is ultimately a courtship display,” said Glenn Wilson (1994). And what do men want? Evolutionary psychologists posit that men favor fertility in women, generally signaled by a youthful and healthy appearance. Men with these prefer- ences, they note, were the most likely to have many offspring. That may not be the con- scious desire of most men today, but their evolutionary history unconsciously pulls them to prefer these characteristics. Evolutionary psychology studies note that gender differences in mate preferences are very large compared to most other psychological sex differences (Conroy-Beam et al., 2015). They are also fairly universal across cultures: ▯ Studies in 45 cultures, from Australia to Zambia, reveal that men everywhere feel attracted to women whose physical features, such as youthful faces and forms, sug- gest fertility. Women everywhere feel attracted to men whose wealth, power, and ambition promise resources for protecting and nurturing offspring (Walter et al., 2020). But there are gender similarities, too: Whether residing on an Indonesian island or in urban São Paulo, both women and men desire kindness, love, and mutual attraction. ▯ Men everywhere tend to be most attracted to women whose age and features sug- gest peak fertility. For teen boys, this is a woman several years older than them- selves. For men in their mid-20s, it’s women their own age. For older men, it’s younger women; the older the man, the greater the age difference he prefers when selecting a mate (Kenrick et al., 2009). This pattern appears worldwide, in Euro- pean singles ads, Indian marital ads, online dating, and marriage records from the Americas, Africa, and the Philippines (Singh, 1993; Singh & Randall, 2007), and — though to a somewhat lesser extent — among gays and lesbians, with many gay men preferring younger partners and lesbian women preferring older partners (Conway et al., 2015). Men married to physically attractive wives reported higher martial satisfaction, whereas husbands’ physical attractiveness had little impact on wives’ satisfaction (Meltzer et al., 2014). Again, say the evolutionary psychologists, we see that natural selection predisposes men to feel attracted to female features associated with fertility. ▯ Monthly fertility also matters. Women’s behaviors, scents, and voices provide subtle clues to their ovulation, which men can detect (Haselton & Gildersleeve, 2011). When at peak fertility, women express greater apprehensiveness of potentially threatening men and greater ability to detect men’s sexual orientation (Gildersleeve et al., 2014). They also behave more flirtatiously with men who are confi- dent and socially dominant (Cantu et al., 2014). Reflecting on the mate preference findings, Buss (1999) reported feeling somewhat astonished “that men and women across the world differ in their mate preferences in precisely the ways predicted by the evolutionists. Just as our fears of snakes, heights, and spiders provide a window for viewing the survival hazards of our evolutionary ancestors, our mating desires pro- vide a window for viewing the resources our ancestors needed for reproduc- tion. We all carry with us today the desires of our successful forebears.” Or as William Faulkner wrote, “The past is never dead. In fact, it’s not even past.” Our ancestral past lives on, in us. Donald Trump is 3 years older than his first wife, Ivana; 17 years older than his second wife, Marla; and 24 years older than his current wife, Melania. mark reinstein/Shutterstock mye88533_ch05_104-133.indd 109 6/4/21 10:52 AM 110 Part Two Social Influence The sex difference in risk-taking is at least partially fueled by testosterone. Gender and Hormones Evolutionary psychology may explain why sex differences are rooted in bio- logical processes, but it doesn’t explain how. One way that biology influ- ences sex differences is through hormones, chemicals in our bodies that can influence behavior and mood. For example, men on average have a higher level of testosterone, a hormone linked to dominance and aggression. Hormones are important because genes by themselves cannot be the source of gender differences: Genetically, males and females differ on only a single chromosome out of 46, and the Y (male) chromosome is distin- guished primarily by one gene. That gene directs the formation of the tes- ticles, which begin to secrete testosterone. Girls exposed to excess testosterone during fetal development tend to exhibit more tomboyish play behavior than other girls (Hines, 2004) and resemble males in their career preferences, with a greater interest in things than people (Beltz et al., 2011). When asked to rotate objects, genetic males insensitive to testosterone show brain activity more typical of females, as their brains were not exposed to as much testosterone prenatally (Van Hemmen et al., 2016). Overall, chil- dren exposed to more testosterone in the womb exhibit the psychological Drpixel/Shutterstock testosterone A hormone more prevalent in males than females that is linked to dominance and aggression. “The finest people marry the two sexes in their own person.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, 1843 androgynous From andro (man) + gyn (woman) — thus mixing both masculine and feminine characteristics. pattern more typical of males, including less eye contact, lower language skill, and less empathy (Auyeung et al., 2013). The gender gap in aggression also seems influenced by testosterone. In various animals, administering testosterone heightens aggressiveness. In humans, violent male criminals, on average, have higher than normal testosterone levels; so do National Football League players, boisterous fraternity members, and college men involved in a sport (Dabbs, 2000; Reed & Meggs, 2017). Moreover, for both humans and monkeys, the gender difference in aggression appears early in life (before culture has much effect) and wanes as testosterone levels decline during adulthood. However, testosterone levels also fluctuate depending on the situation: Acting aggressively can increase testosterone in men (Geniole et al., 2020), and acting com- passionately (such as while taking care of a baby) can decrease it (Gettler et al., 2011). As people mature to middle age and beyond, a curious thing happens. Women become more assertive and self-confident, and men become more empathic and less domineering (Kasen et al., 2006; Pratt et al., 1990). Hormone changes are one possible explanation for the shrinking gender differences. Role demands are another. Some speculate that during courtship and early parenthood, social expectations lead both sexes to emphasize traits that enhance their roles. While courting, providing, and protecting, men play up their macho sides and forgo their needs for interdependence and nurturance (Gutmann, 1977). While dating or rearing young children, young women restrain their impulses to assert and be independent. As men and women graduate from these early adult roles, they supposedly express more of their restrained tendencies. Each becomes more androgynous — capable of both assertiveness and nurturance. Reflections on Evolutionary Psychology Without disputing natural selection — nature’s process of selecting physical and behavioral traits that enhance gene survival — critics see a problem with evolutionary explanations. Evolutionary psychologists sometimes start with a finding (such as the male-female difference in sexual initiative) and then work backward to construct an explanation for it. As biologists Paul Ehrlich and Marcus Feldman (2003) have pointed out, the evolutionary theorist can hardly lose when employing hindsight. Today’s evolutionary psychology is like yesterday’s Freudian psychology, say such critics: Either theory can be retrofitted to whatever happens. The way to overcome the hindsight bias is to imagine things turning out otherwise. Let’s try it. Imagine that women were stronger and more physically aggressive than men. “But of course!” someone might say, “all the better for protecting their young.” And if human males were never known to have extramarital affairs, might we not see the evolutionary wisdom behind their fidelity? There is more to bringing offspring to maturity than merely depositing sperm, so men and women both gain by investing jointly in their children. Males who are loyal to their mates and offspring are more likely to see their young survive to perpetuate their genes. Monogamy also increases men’s certainty of paternity. (These are, in fact, evolutionary mye88533_ch05_104-133.indd 110 6/4/21 10:52 AM Genes, Culture, and Gender Chapter 5 111 focusON Evolutionary Science and Religion A century and a half after Charles Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species, controversy continues over his big idea: that every earthly creature is descended from another earthly creature. The controversy rages most intensely in the United States, where a Gallup survey reveals that half of adults do not believe that evolution accounts for “how human beings came to exist on Earth” and that 38% believe humans were created “within the past 10,000 years or so” (Swift, 2017). This skepticism of evolution per- sists despite the evidence, including research showing species’ genetic relatedness, which long ago persuaded 95% of scientists that “human beings have developed over millions of years” (Gallup, 1996). For most scientists, mutation and natural selection ex- plain the emergence of life, including its ingenious de- signs. For example, the human eye, an engineering marvel that encodes and transmits a rich stream of information, has its building blocks “dotted around the animal king- dom,” enabling nature to select mutations that over time improved the design (Dennett, 2005). Indeed, many sci- entists are fond of quoting the famous dictum of geneticist (and Russian Orthodox Church member) Theodosius Dobzhansky, “Nothing makes sense in biology except in the light of evolution.” Alan Leshner (2005), the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s former executive director, la- mented the polarization caused by zealots at both the antiscience and the antireligion extremes. To resolve the growing science-religion tension, he believes scientists should communicate to the public that science and reli- gion can co-exist, with each providing benefits to society. Many scientists concur with Leshner, believing that sci- ence offers answers to questions such as “when?” and “how?” and that religion offers answers to “who?” and “why?” In the fifth century, St. Augustine anticipated to- day’s science-affirming people of faith: “The universe was brought into being in a less than fully formed state, but was gifted with the capacity to transform itself from unformed matter into a truly marvelous array of structures and forms” (Wilford, 1999). And the universe truly is marvelous, say cosmologists. Had gravity been a tiny bit stronger or weaker, or had the carbon proton weighed ever so slightly more or less, our universe — which is so extraordinarily right for producing life — would never have produced us. Although there are questions beyond science (why is there something rather than nothing?), this much appears true, concludes cosmol- ogist Paul Davies (2004, 2007): Nature seems ingeniously devised to produce self-replicating, information-process- ing systems (us). Although we appear to have been cre- ated over eons of time, the end result is our wonderfully complex, meaningful, and hope-filled existence. Critics also worry that evolutionary explanations for gang violence, homicidal jealousy, and rape might reinforce and justify male aggression as natural behaviors — and do the same for men who cheat on their wives with younger women. But remember, reply the evolutionary psycholo- gists, evolutionary wisdom is wisdom from the past. It tells us what behaviors worked in our early history as a species. Whether such tendencies are still adaptive today or much less socially acceptable is an entirely different question. Evolutionary psychology’s critics acknowledge that evolution helps explain both our commonalities and our differences (a certain amount of diversity aids survival). But they contend that our common evolutionary heritage does not, by itself, predict the enormous cultural variation in hu- man marriage patterns (from one spouse to a succession of spouses to multiple wives to multiple husbands to spouse swapping). Nor does it explain cultural changes in behavior patterns over mere decades of time. The most significant trait that nature has endowed us with, it seems, is the capacity to adapt — to learn and to change. Evolu- tion is not genetic determinism, say its defenders, because evolution has prepared us to adapt to varied environments (Confer et al., 2010). As everyone agrees, cultures vary and cultures change — and that’s where we turn next.  explanations — again based on hindsight — for why humans, and certain other species whose young require a heavy parental investment, tend to pair off and be monogamous). Evolutionary psychologists argue that hindsight plays no less a role in cultural explanations: Why do women and men differ? Because their culture socializes their behavior! When people’s roles vary across time and place, “culture” describes those roles better than it explains them. And far from being mere hindsight conjecture, say evolutionary psychologists, their field is an empiri- cal science that tests evolutionary predictions with data from animal behavior, cross-cultural observations, and hormonal and genetic studies. As in many scientific fields, observations inspire a theory that generates new, testable predictions. The predictions alert us to unnoticed phenom- ena and allow us to confirm, refute, or revise the theory. (Outside of mainstream science, other critics challenge the teaching of evolution; see “Focus On: Evolutionary Science and Religion”). mye88533_ch05_104-133.indd 111 6/4/21 10:52 AM 112 Part Two Social Influence SUMMING UP: How Are We Influenced by Biology? ▯ How are we humans alike, how do we differ — and why? Evolutionary psychologists study how natural selection favors behavioral traits that promote the perpetuation of one’s genes. Although part of evolution’s legacy is our human capacity to learn and adapt (and therefore to differ from one another), the evolutionary perspec- tive highlights the kinship that results from our shared human nature. ▯ Evolutionary psychologists theorize how evolution might have predisposed gender differences in behaviors such as aggression and sexual initiative. Nature’s mat- ing game favors males who take sexual initiative toward females — especially those with physical features sug- gesting fertility — and who seek aggressive dominance ▯ ▯ in competing with other males. Females, who have fewer reproductive chances, place a greater priority on selecting mates offering the resources to protect and nurture their young. Hormonal influences on behavior may be one mecha- nism by which sex differences are influenced by biology. Critics say that evolutionary explanations are sometimes after-the-fact conjectures that fail to account for the real- ity of cultural diversity; they also question whether enough empirical evidence exists to support evolution- ary psychology’s theories and are concerned that these theories will reinforce troublesome stereotypes. “Stand tall, Bipedal Ape. The shark may outswim you, the cheetah outrun you, the swift outfly you, the redwood out- last you. But you have the biggest gifts of all.” —Richard Dawkins, The Devil’s Chaplain, 2003 culture The enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next. HOW ARE WE INFLUENCED BY CULTURE? Understand how culture shapes behavior and gender roles. Imagine getting on a plane tonight, settling down to sleep, and waking up tomorrow in another country. You immediately notice that people are speaking a different language, greeting each other in different ways, and wearing different clothing than in the country you inhabited just the day before. For all of our similarities as humans, we also exhibit a breathtaking diversity in the way we live our lives around the world. We’ll begin by discussing cultural influences in general and then, as we did in the previ- ous section on biology, will use gender differences as a vehicle to explore cultural influences on behavior. Culture and Behavior We humans have been selected not only for big brains and biceps but also for culture. We come prepared to learn language and to bond and cooperate with others in securing food, caring for the young, and protecting ourselves. Perhaps our most important similarity, the hallmark of our species, is our capacity to learn and adapt. Our genes enable an adaptive human brain — a cerebral hard drive that receives the culture’s software. Evolution has prepared us to live creatively in a changing world and to thrive in environments from equatorial jungles to Arctic ice fields. Compared with bees, birds, and bulldogs, nature has humans on a looser genetic leash. Ironically, our shared human biology enables our cultural diversity. It enables those in one culture to value promptness, welcome frankness, or accept premarital sex, whereas those in another culture do not. As social psychologist Roy Bau- meister (2005, p. 29) observed, “Evolution made us for culture.” (See “Focus On: The Cultural Animal.”) It’s important to understand that biology and culture are not two completely separate influences. More often than not, they interact to produce the diversity of behavior you see around you. Genes are not fixed blueprints; their expression depends on the environment, much as the taste of tea is not “expressed” until meeting a hot water environment. One mye88533_ch05_104-133.indd 112 6/4/21 10:52 AM Genes, Culture, and Gender Chapter 5 113 focusON The Cultural Animal We are, said Aristotle, the social animal. We humans have at least one thing in common with wolves and bees: We flourish by organizing ourselves into groups and working together. But more than that, noted Roy Baumeister, we are — as he labeled us in the title of his 2005 book — The Cultural Animal. Humans more than other animals harness the power of culture to make life better. “Culture is a better way of being social,” he wrote. We have culture to thank for our communication through language, our driving safely on one side of the road, our eating fruit in winter, and our use of money to pay for our cars and fruit. Culture facilitates our survival and reproduction, and nature has blessed us with a brain that, like no other, enables culture. Other animals show the rudiments of culture and lan- guage. Monkeys who learn new food-washing techniques then pass them to future generations. And chimps exhibit a modest capacity for language. But no species can accumulate progress across generations as smartly as humans. Your nineteenth-century ancestors had no cars, no indoor plumbing, no electricity, no air conditioning, no internet, no smartphones, no Facebook pages, and no Post-it notes — all things for which you can thank culture. Intelligence enables innovation, and culture enables dissemination — the transmission of information and innovation across time and place. The division of labor is “another huge and powerful advantage of culture,” noted Baumeister. Few of us grow food or build shelter, yet nearly everyone reading this book enjoys food and shelter. Indeed, books themselves are a tribute to the division of labor enabled by culture. Although only two lucky people’s names go on this book’s cover, the product is actually the work of a coordinated team of researchers, reviewers, assistants, and editors. Books and other media disseminate knowledge, provid- ing the engine of progress. “Culture is what is special about human beings,” con- cluded Baumeister. “Culture helps us to become some- thing much more than the sum of our talents, efforts, and other individual blessings. In that sense, culture is the greatest blessing of all.... Alone we would be but cun- ning brutes, at the mercy of our surroundings. Together, we can sustain a system that enables us to make life pro- gressively better for ourselves, our children, and those who come after.” study of New Zealand young adults revealed a gene variation that put people at risk for depression, but only if they had also experienced major life stresses such as their parents’ divorce (Caspi et al., 2003). Neither the stress nor the gene alone produced depression, but the two interacting did. Such findings have spawned the science of epigenetics, which considers how environments modify gene expression. Nature predisposes us to learn whatever culture we are born into. The cultural perspec- tive highlights human adaptability. People’s “natures are alike,” said Confucius; “it is their habits that carry them far apart.” And we are still far apart, noted world culture researchers Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel (2005). Despite increasing education, “we are not moving toward a uniform global culture: cultural convergence is not taking place. A society’s cultural heritage is remarkably enduring” (p. 46). CULTURAL DIVERSITY The diversity of our languages, customs, and expressive behaviors confirms that much of our behavior is socially programmed, not hardwired. The genetic leash is long. As sociolo- gist Ian Robertson (1987) has noted: Americans eat oysters but not snails. The French eat snails but not locusts. The Zulus eat locusts but not fish. The Jews eat fish but not pork. The Hindus eat pork but not beef. The Russians eat beef but not snakes. The Chinese eat snakes but not people. The Jalé of New Guinea find people delicious. (p. 67) If we all lived as homogeneous ethnic groups in separate regions of the world, as some people still do, cultural diversity would be less relevant to our daily living. In Japan, where 98.5% of people are Japanese (CIA, 2017), internal cultural differences are minimal. In epigenetics The study of environmental influences on gene expression that occur without DNA change. mye88533_ch05_104-133.indd 113 6/4/21 10:52 AM 114 Part Two Social Influence “Women kiss women good night. Men kiss women good night. But men do not kiss men good night — especially in Armonk.” Although some norms are universal, every culture has its own norms — rules for accepted and ex- pected social behavior. J. B. Handelsman contrast, cultural differences abound in New York City, where more than one-third of the 9 million residents are foreign born. Increasingly, cultural diversity surrounds us. More and more, we live in a global village, connected to our fellow villagers by electronic social networks, jumbo jets, and international trade. The mingling of cultures is nothing new. “American” jeans were invented in 1872 by German immigrant Levi Strauss by combining “Genes”, the trouser style of Genoese sailors, with denim cloth from a French town (Legrain, 2003). Confronting another culture is sometimes a startling experience. American males may feel uncomfortable when Middle Eastern heads of state greet the U.S. president with a kiss on the cheek. A German student, accustomed to speaking to “Herr Professor” only on rare occasions, considers it strange that at my [DM’s] institution, most faculty office doors are open and students stop by freely. An Iranian student on her first visit to an American McDonald’s restaurant fumbles around in her paper bag looking for the eating utensils until she sees the other customers eating their french fries with, of all things, their hands. In many areas of the globe, your best manners and mine are serious breaches of etiquette. Foreigners visiting Japan often struggle to master the rules of the social game — when to take off their shoes, how to pour the tea, when to give and open gifts, how to act toward someone higher or lower in the social hierarchy. Migration and refugee evacuations are mixing cultures more than ever. “East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,” wrote the nineteenth-century British author Rudyard Kipling. But today, East and West, and North and South, meet all the time. Italy is home to many Albanians, Cultures mixing. As this family (with an Asian American mother and an African American father) illustrates, immigration and globalization are bringing once- distant cultures together. Germany to Turks, England — where Mohammed in its various spellings is now the most common boy’s name (Cohen, 2011) — to Pakistanis. The result is both friend- ship and conflict. One in 5 Canadians and 1 in 8 Americans are immigrants. As we work, play, and live with people from diverse cultural backgrounds, it helps to under- stand how our cultures influence us and how our cultures differ. In a conflict-laden world, achieving peace requires appreciation for both our genuine differences and our deep similarities. NORMS: EXPECTED BEHAVIOR As etiquette rules illustrate, all cultures have their accepted ideas about appropriate behavior. We often view these social expectations, or norms, as a negative force that imprisons people in a blind effort to perpetuate tradition. Norms do restrain and control us — so successfully and so subtly that we hardly sense their existence. Like fish in the ocean, we are all so immersed in our cultures that we must leap out of them to understand their influence. “When we see other Dutch people behaving in what foreigners would call a Dutch way,” noted Dutch psychologists Willem Koomen and Anton Dijker (1997), “we often do not realize that the behavior is typically Dutch.” pixelheadphoto digitalskillet/Shutterstock norms Standards for accepted and expected behavior. Norms prescribe “proper” behavior. (In a different sense of the word, norms also describe what most others do — what is normal.) There is no better way to learn the norms of our native culture than to visit another culture and see that its members do things that way, whereas we do them this way. When living in Scotland, I [DM] acknowledged to my children that, yes, Europeans eat meat with the fork facing down in the left hand. “But we Americans consider it good man- ners to cut the meat and then transfer the fork to the right hand. I admit it’s inefficient. But it’s the way we do it.” To those who don’t accept them, such norms may seem arbitrary and confining. To most in the Western world, the Muslim woman’s head covering (known as the hijab) seems arbitrary and confining, but not to most in Muslim cultures. The Muslim women in my [JT’s] classes believe the hijab encourages men to see them as people rather than as sexual objects. Just as a stage play moves smoothly when the actors know their lines, so social behavior occurs smoothly when people know what to expect. Norms grease the social mye88533_ch05_104-133.indd 114 6/4/21 10:52 AM machinery. In unfamiliar situations, when the norms may be unclear, we monitor others’ behavior and adjust our own accordingly. Cultures vary in their norms for expressiveness, punctuality, rule breaking, and personal space. Consider the following: INDIVIDUAL CHOICES Cultures vary in how much they emphasize the individual self (individualistic cultures) versus others and the society (collectivistic cultures). As a result, Western (usually individualistic) coun- tries allow people more latitude in making their own decisions. When I [JT] was in college, my Pakistani-American friend wanted to go to graduate school to study Latin. Her parents insisted she go to medical school, saying they would cut off their financial support if she did not. Having grown up in the United States, I was shocked that her parents would tell her what profession to pursue, but in collectivistic cultures, this type of obedience to one’s parents is more widely accepted (Lum et al., 2016). In some cultures and regions, hugging and even hand-holding by male friends is the norm, but in others, such physical closeness between male friends would be seen as odd. vystekimages/Shutterstock Differences rooted in individualism and collectivism also appear on social media sites. People in collectivistic countries are more likely to use social media to promote group belonging, such as by commenting on others’ posts. Those in individualistic coun- tries, however, are more likely to use social media for self-expression, such as posting about their thoughts and activities (Hong & Na, 2018). EXPRESSIVENESS AND PUNCTUALITY To someone from a relatively formal north- ern European culture, a person whose roots are in an expressive Latin American culture may seem “warm, charming, inefficient, and time-wasting.” Latin American business execu- tives who arrive late for a dinner engagement may be mystified by the irritation of their time-obsessed North American counterparts. To the Latin American person, the northern European may seem “efficient, cold, and overconcerned with time” (Beaulieu, 2004; Triandis, 1981). And they might be right: Northern Europeans walk faster on public streets than those in Latin America, and northern European bank clocks are more accurate (Levine & Norenzayan, 1999). North American tourists in Japan may wonder about the lack of eye contact from passing pedestrians. (See “Research Close-Up: Passing Encoun- ters, East and West.”) RULE-FOLLOWING Norms and rule-following are especially important in traditional, collectivistic cultures, where violating norms is punished most harshly when others are harmed (Feinberg et al., 2019). However, rules can go beyond harm protection to promot- ing group sameness and harmony. In one study, Koreans (compared to Americans) were more likely to avoid co-workers who were vegetarians, perhaps because this is a nonnormative choice. To most Americans, being a vegetarian is a personal preference; to a Korean, it signals standing out from the group and is thus undesirable (Kinias et al., 2014). Many collectivistic cultures promote the belief that human suffering — such as contracting a disease — is caused by violating social norms (Sullivan et al., 2012). Collectivistic cultures are more likely to stigmatize people seen as different, whether through identity (gays and lesbians, immigrants) or behavior (heavy drinkers, drug addicts [Shin et al., 2013]). Collectivistic or “tight” cultures may have developed strong norms because they were historically more likely to experience threats such as wars or famines (Gelfand et al., 2011). Col- lectivistic cultures are also more likely to have experienced another threat: frequent outbreaks of infectious diseases. Dur- ing outbreaks, citizens must follow specific rules, such as physical distancing, hand washing, and wearing masks in pub- lic. A culture with a strong emphasis on rules may adapt more easily to these situations. In contrast, individualistic cultures have historically had less experience with disease outbreaks, Norms — rules for accepted and expected behavior — vary by culture. Collectivistic countries such as Japan often have stronger norms. georgeclerk/E+/Getty Images Genes, Culture, and Gender Chapter 5 115 mye88533_ch05_104-133.indd 115 6/4/21 10:52 AM 116 Part Two Social Influence research CLOSE-UP Passing Encounters, East and West On my [DM’s] Midwestern American campus and in my town, sidewalk passersby routinely glance and smile at one another. In Britain and China, where I have spent time, I have rarely observed such microinteractions. To a European, our greeting passing strangers might seem a bit silly and disrespectful of privacy; to a Midwesterner, avoiding eye contact — what sociologists have called “civil inattention” — might seem aloof. To quantify the culture difference in pedestrian interac- tions, an international team led by Miles Patterson and Yuichi Iizuka (2007) conducted a simple field experiment both in the United States and in Japan with the unwitting participation of more than 1,000 pedestrians. Their proce- dure illustrates how social psychologists sometimes con- duct unobtrusive research in natural settings (Patterson, 2008). As Figure 1 depicts, an accomplice (an accomplice of the experimenter) would initiate one of three behaviors when within about 12 feet of an approaching pedestrian on an uncrowded sidewalk: (1) avoidance (looking straight ahead), (2) glancing at the person for less than a second, and (3) looking at the person and smiling. A trailing observer would then record the pedestrian’s reaction. Did the pedestrian glance at the accomplice? Smile? Nod? Verbally greet the accomplice? (The order of the three conditions was randomized and unknown to the trailing observer, ensuring that the person recording the data was “blind” to the experimental condition.) As you might expect, the pedestrians were more likely to look at someone who looked at them and to smile at, nod to, or greet someone who also smiled at them. This was especially so when that someone was female rather than male. But as Figure 2 shows, the culture differences were nevertheless striking. As the research team expected, in view of Japan’s greater respect for privacy and cultural reserve when interacting with outgroups, Americans were much more likely to smile at, nod to, or greet the accomplice. In Japan, they conclude, “there is little pressure to re- ciprocate the smile of the accomplice because there is no relationship with the accomplice and no obligation to respond.” Participant: Solitary pedestrian with no one close in front or behind. Accomplice: Initiates the condition at approximately 12 ft. from the participant. Observer: Approximately 30 ft. behind the confederate. Observer monitors the participant once the accomplice makes a hand signal to start the condition. % Smiles 50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 50 Avoid Glance Condition US Japan Look and smile FIGURE 1 Illustration of Passing Encounter Source: Patterson, M. L., Iizuka, Y., Tubbs, M., Ansel, J., Tsutsumi, M., & Anson, J. (2007). FIGURE 2 American and Japanese Pedestrian Responses, by Condition Source: Adapted from Patterson, M. L., Iizuka, Y., Tubbs, M., Ansel, J., Tsutsumi, M., & Anson, J. (2007). mye88533_ch05_104-133.indd 116 6/4/21 10:52 AM Genes, Culture, and Gender Chapter 5 117  and place less emphasis on following rules (Grossmann & Varnum, 2015; Morand & Wal- ther, 2018). This might be one reason why the citizens of individualistic countries such as the United States found it difficult to adapt to the restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic: Americans were not used to being told what to do. Slowly, however, mask- wearing and physical distancing became a norm in many areas of the country — one that residents of more collectivistic countries adopted without question early in the pandemic. PERSONAL SPACE Personal space is a sort of portable bubble or buffer zone that we like to maintain between ourselves and others. As the situation changes, the bubble varies in size. With strangers, most Americans maintain a fairly large personal space, keeping 4 feet or more between us. On uncrowded buses or in restrooms or libraries, we protect our space and respect others’ space. We let friends come closer (Novelli et al., 2010). Norms for personal space changed suddenly with the advent of social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, when people were asked to stay 6 feet apart from each other in public. Individuals differ: Some people prefer more personal space than others (Perry et al., 2013). Groups differ, too: Adults maintain more distance than do children. Men keep more distance from one another than women do. For reasons unknown, cultures near the equator prefer less distance and more touching and hugging. Thus, the British and the Scandina- vians prefer more distance than the French and the Arabs; North Americans prefer more space than Latin Americans (Sorokowska et al., 2017). Peer-Transmitted Culture Cultures, like ice cream, come in many flavors. On Wall Street, men mostly wear suits, and women often wear skirts and dresses. In Scotland, many men wear pleated skirts (kilts) as formal dress. In some equatorial cultures, men and women wear virtually nothing at all. How are such traditions preserved across generations? The prevailing assumption is what Judith Rich Harris (1998, 2007) called The Nurture Assumption: Parental nurture, the way parents bring their children up, governs who their children become. On that much, Freudians and behaviorists — and your next-door neighbor — agree. Comparing the extremes of loved children and abused children suggests that parent- ing does matter. Moreover, children do acquire many of their values, including their political affiliation and religious faith, at home. But if children’s personalities likewise are molded by parental example and nurture, then children who grow up in the same families should be noticeably alike, shouldn’t they? That presumption is refuted by the most astonishing, agreed-upon, and dramatic finding of developmental psychology: Growing up in the same family makes very little difference — at least in personality traits. personal space The buffer zone we like to maintain around our bodies. Its size depends on our culture and our familiarity with whoever is near us. “Some 30 inches from my nose, the frontier of my person goes.” —W. H. Auden (1907–1973) The evidence from studies of twins and biological and adoptive siblings indicates that genetic influences explain roughly 40% of individual variations in personality traits (Vukasović & Bratko, 2015). Shared environmental influences — including the shared home influence — account for only 0 to 1% of their personality differences. So what accounts for the rest? Much of it is peer influence, Harris argued. What children and teens care about most is not what their parents think but what their friends think. Chil- dren and youths learn their culture — their games, their musical tastes, their accents, even their dirty words — mostly from peers. Most teens therefore talk, act, and dress more like their peers than their parents. In hindsight, that makes sense. It’s their peers with whom they play and eventually will work and mate. Consider: ▯ Preschoolers will often refuse to try a certain food despite parents’ urgings — until they are put at a table with a group of children who like it. Children learn many of their attitudes from their peers. wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock mye88533_ch05_104-133.indd 117 29/06/21 12:31 PM 118 Part Two Social Influence “Whatever the conditions of people’s lives, wherever they live, however they live, we all share the same dreams.” —Melinda Gates, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation ▯ Having friends who text while driving triples the odds of your doing so (Trivedi et al., 2017). ▯ Young immigrant children whose families are transplanted into foreign cultures usu- ally grow up preferring the language and norms of their new peer culture. A young child who moves with her family from China to the United States will speak English with an American accent — even if her parents never learn English or have heavy accents. Youth may “code-switch” when they step back into their homes, but their hearts and minds are with their peer groups. Likewise, deaf children of hearing parents who attend schools for the deaf usually leave their parents’ culture and assimilate into deaf culture. Therefore, if we left a group of children with their same schools, neighborhoods, and peers but switched the parents around, said Harris (1996) in taking her argument to its limits, they “would develop into the same sort of adults.” Parents have an important influ- ence, but it’s substantially indirect; parents help define the schools, neighborhoods, and peers that directly influence whether their children become delinquent, use drugs, or get pregnant. Moreover, children often take their cues from slightly older children, who get their cues from older youth, who take theirs from young adults in the parents’ generation. The links of influence from parental group to child group are loose enough that the cultural transmission is never perfect. And in both human and primate cultures, change comes from the young. When one monkey discovers a better way of washing food or when people develop a new idea about fashion or gender roles, the innovation usually comes from the young and is more readily embraced by younger adults. Thus, cultural traditions con- tinue; yet cultures change. Cultural Similarity Thanks to human adaptability, cultures differ. Yet beneath the veneer of cultural differences, cross-cultural psychologists see “an essential universality” (Lonner, 1980). How much we are similar is usually larger than how much we differ (Hanel et al., 2019). As members of one species, the processes that underlie our differing behaviors are much the same every- where (Figure 3). People everywhere have some common norms for friendship. From studies conducted in Britain, Italy, Hong Kong, and Japan, Michael Argyle and Monika Henderson (1985) noted several cultural variations in the norms that define the role of friend. For example, in Japan it’s especially important not to embarrass a friend with public criticism. But there are also some apparently universal norms: respect the friend’s privacy; make eye contact while talking; don’t divulge things said in confidence. Across 75 nations, the most valued traits were honesty, fairness, kindness, good judgment, and curiosity — nearly all crucial virtues for friendships and relationships (McGrath, 2015). Around the world, people describe others with between two and five universal personal- ity dimensions (McCrae & Costa, 2008; Saucier et al., 2014). Evaluating others as good or bad appears across almost all cultures and languages. All cultures have norms, so all cul- tures evaluate how well others follow those norms (Saucier et al., 2014). Likewise, there are five universal dimensions of social beliefs (Leung & Bond, 2004). Across 38 countries, people varied in cynicism, social complexity, reward for application, spirituality, and fate control (Figure 4). People’s adherence to these social beliefs appears to guide their living. Cynics express lower life satisfaction and favor assertive influence tactics and right-wing politics. Those who believe in hard work (“reward for application”) are inclined to invest themselves in study, planning, and competing. Wherever people form status hierarchies, they also talk to higher-status people in the respectful way they often talk to strangers. And they talk to lower-status people in the more familiar, first-name way they speak to friends (Brown, 1965, 1987; Kroger & Wood, 1992). Patients call their physician “Dr. So and So”; the physician may reply using the patients’ first names. Students and professors typically address one another in a similarly nonmutual way. mye88533_ch05_104-133.indd 118 6/4/21 10:52 AM Genes, Culture, and Gender Chapter 5 119 FIGURE 3 Words used to express positive emotion in (a) India and (b) the United States In a study of the language of Facebook users, positive emo- tion was expressed in similar ways in India (top) and the United States (bottom), with a few cultural differences (such as the greater use of “thanks” in India). (a-b) Source: Kern, M. L., & Sap, M. (2015). (b) bro good_one good laugh hehe :p pretty_sure hehe truth it's happy_birthdayfriend easy okay good_one well laughter thats luck haha silly like amazing is best