Why Is USA Different?
overcomingbias.com
Why Is USA Different?
1–10 of 19 posts
Re: Why Is USA Different?
#2Seems rather bad. I live in Germany and lots of people I know have separate rooms for their babies, for example.
Also I have been told having the baby sleep in the same room reduces the risk of sudden infant death, so I wonder if the extra room really is a result of an evolved cultural advantage.
Anyway, could it be that the US is simply bigger than most other WEIRD countries? A lot of more people would imply more people of the extreme variety. Also, I think you have a lot of space over there. So bedrooms are cheap, too, which would also explain the extra bedrooms. A lot of families in other countries simply can not afford extra bedrooms for babies.
Also I didn't like the pattern of this article of building up authority by stating some random statistical facts, then using that artificial authority to put forward some random theory of cultural evolution.
Re: Why Is USA Different?
#3Seems rather bad. I live in Germany and lots of people I know have separate rooms for their babies, for example. Also I have been told having the baby sleep in the same room reduces the risk of sudden infant death, so I wonder if the extra room really is a result of an evolved cultural advantage. Anyway, could it be that the US is simply bigger than most other WEIRD countries? A lot of more people would imply more pe…
> I live in Germany and lots of people I know have separate rooms for their babies, for example.
Yeah, that was a weird example to talk about. I was immediately thinking, why is that weird? Excited parents are just preparing a separate room for their future, post-infancy child (which isn't unusual at least in the 1st-world, right?) ahead of time.
Re: Why Is USA Different?
#4Narcissism of small differences.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences
Re: Why Is USA Different?
#5Narcissism of small differences. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences
I can't really analyze it one way or another, but selecting the acronym "WEIRD" sure doesn't help their case against Narcissism of small differences.
Re: Why Is USA Different?
#6Seems rather bad. I live in Germany and lots of people I know have separate rooms for their babies, for example. Also I have been told having the baby sleep in the same room reduces the risk of sudden infant death, so I wonder if the extra room really is a result of an evolved cultural advantage. Anyway, could it be that the US is simply bigger than most other WEIRD countries? A lot of more people would imply more pe…
Also, I think you have a lot of space over there. So bedrooms are cheap
That was the first thing I though of as well. My baby doesn't have her own room for the simple reason that we don't have a room to spare.
Re: Why Is USA Different?
#7We speculate that in the context of mobile, meritocratic societies, cultural evolutionary processes rooted in our evolved tendencies to imitate successful and prestigious individuals will favor the spread of child-rearing traits that speed up and enhance the development of those particular cognitive and social skills that eventually translate into social and economic success in these populations.
I'm so thankful that I didn't pursue a career that required me to read, write, and possibly take seriously pseudo-intellectual crap like this.
Re: Why Is USA Different?
#8Narcissism of small differences. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences
I'm not sure what you want to say with this link. Do you mean that for you the differences between WEIRDos from US and Europe are small ones?
Re: Why Is USA Different?
#9Narcissism of small differences. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences
With a good amount of American exceptionalism thrown in...
Re: Why Is USA Different?
#10Seems rather bad. I live in Germany and lots of people I know have separate rooms for their babies, for example. Also I have been told having the baby sleep in the same room reduces the risk of sudden infant death, so I wonder if the extra room really is a result of an evolved cultural advantage. Anyway, could it be that the US is simply bigger than most other WEIRD countries? A lot of more people would imply more pe…
I'm not in the USA, and I think most parents I know want a separate room for their baby - it's only for economic reasons in most cases if that doesn't happen.
The only people I know who don't have their baby in a separate room still have an empty room in their house.
It was a very strange factoid to put into the article, but because it was at the start I immediately skimmed the rest doubting it's research or authenticity.