Category Archives: Invited Talk

The Future of Government Disruptive Debate at the World Bank [online]

The fifth Future of Government Disruptive Debate hosted by the World Bank tackles the issue of citizens’ trust in government. Together with a diverse group of high-profile practitioners, renowned experts, and thought leaders, I discuss how the natural state of affairs is corruption and the challenges government face in getting citizens to trust higher levels of cooperation.

My opening remarks can be found from 7:12 to 14:07 in the recording above. A rough summary of my talk can be found on my substack: https://muthukrishnalab.substack.com/p/trust-governance-and-cultural-evolution

More about the event here: https://www.worldbank.org/en/events/2021/09/22/how-will-citizens-trust-in-government-be-affected

Description:

The fifth Future of Government Disruptive Debate will tackle the issue of citizens’ trust in government. The Disruptive Debate series aims is to bring together a diverse group of high-profile practitioners, renowned experts and thought leaders to generate new knowledge and perspectives.

The issue of trust has been a frequent theme arising during the Disruptive Debate series. The panel addressed questions such as: Why is trust important for poverty reduction and shared prosperity? What is the relationship between inequality and trust? What can governments do to increase, or re-build, trust? How can citizens influence and hold governments to account? What has been the role of information, data and social media, particularly during COVID-19?

The other speakers included:

My thanks to host Raj Kumar, founding president & editor in chief of Devex and to the World Bank team.

“Cultural Evolutionary Psychology” at Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES) Conference 2021 [online]

I gave a plenary talk at the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES) Conference on “cultural evolutionary psychology”. My talk discussed how the Cultural Brain and the Collective Brain, can unify the work done in the last decade in evolutionary psychology under a common framework.

I explained how these hypotheses shed light on our understanding of intelligence, innovation, cooperation and the “paradox of diversity”.

Considering the limitations of psychology today, I discussed ways in which we can move beyond WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) psychology in a global collaborative manner and strengthen the links between basic and applied policy research. I also discussed the importance of historical psychology.

Many thanks to Joseph Henrich for the enthusiastic introduction.

Cultural Brain Hypothesis, Collective Brains, and the Evolution of Intelligence at Dysoc Webinar Series on Human Origins and Cultural Evolution: Celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Descent of Man [online]

This year marks the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s Descent of Man. As part of the celebration, the Center for the Dynamics of Social Complexity (DySoc) organized a series as Outreach for the Cultural Evolution Society: Celebrating the 150th anniversary of the The Descent of Man (http://www.dysoc.org/dom_webinars). I presented the most up-to-date version of the “Cultural Brain Hypothesis, Collective Brains, and the Evolution of Intelligence”. You can watch the talk below:

The ties that bind us at Beveridge 2.0. Symposium: Reciprocity across the life-cycle [online]

I gave a talk on “The ties that bind us” at the Beveridge 2.0. Symposium: Reciprocity across the life-cycle hosted by STICERD and the LSE School of Public Policy The talk applied the science of cooperation to the problem of the future welfare state, particularly around pensions and retirement. A corresponding paper is under review at LSE Public Policy Review.

Cooperation and the moral circle: When cooperation harms the collective good at SPSP 2021 Justice and Morality Pre-Conference [online]

I gave a talk on “Cooperation and the moral circle: When cooperation harms the collective good” as part of the SPSP 2021 Justice and Morality Pre-Conference. It’s part of some new work on the problem of the expanding moral circle as it links to cooperation, corruption, prosocial, and antisocial behavior. A related working paper is available here: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.19.432029v2

“What affects our level of intelligence?” at the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute hosted by the Templeton World Charity Foundation at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, UK.

This year’s Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute was held online due to the pandemic. I delivered a lecture over Zoom on “What affects our level of intelligence?” followed by a lively discussion with the students. The lecture discussed brain evolution, the Cultural Brain Hypothesis, collective brain, and a cultural evolutionary account of intelligence. You can watch it below:

Communication and Competition at the Learning Innovations LaBarge tree “LILA” at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA

 I ran a workshop on communication competition at the Learning Innovations Laboratory (LILA), part of Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The LILA group include people from industry and the military. We discussed various aspects of the science of cooperation, including how and when it fails.I also introduced some new work on the paradox of diversity and on measuring cultural distance.

One of the participants, Sue Borchardt is now making an animated series based on the talk.

Beyond WEIRD Psychology: Measuring and Mapping Scales of Cultural and Psychological Distance at Brunel University, London

I was delighted to discuss my recent paper on measuring cultural distance “Beyond WEIRD Psychology: Measuring and Mapping Scales of Cultural and Psychological Distance” at the Center for Culture and Evolution (add link to center) of Brunel University (add link to university). The center is emerging as an exciting and quickly growing hub for cultural evolutionary research.

“Culture Evolving and Scales of Cooperation Competing” at the Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE) conference at the University of Warwick, UK

I was invited to present my work on cultural evolution and how scales of cooperation compete at the Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE) conference at the University of Warwick, UK. You can read more about cultural evolution in this chapter , more about scales of cooperating competing in this Evonomics / Promarket piece and some experimental evidence in this Nature Human Behavior paper.

Theory and WEIRD scale at LEVYNA, Brno, Czechia

I gave a public lecture on “A theory of human behavior? What would it look like and what would it offer?” and a workshop talk on “Beyond WEIRD Psychology and toward an understanding of evil eye and differences in economic productivity” at the LEVYNA Laboratory for the Experimental Research of Religion at the Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia

The public lecture was largely based on a recent Nature Human Behaviour piece “A Problem in Theory” on the role of theory in the psychological and behavioural sciences.

The workshop talk was a more indepth discussion of a recent working paper on measuring cultural distance “Beyond WEIRD Psychology: Measuring and Mapping Scales of Cultural and Psychological Distance” (pre-print) and some in-progress follow up work somewhat based on another recent paper published in Nature Human Behaviour, with some context published in Evonomics and ProMarket (pre-print).

Beyond WEIRD Psychology: Measuring and Mapping Scales of Cultural and Psychological Distance at University of Economics, Prague, Czechia

I presented some work on measuring cultural distance “Beyond WEIRD Psychology: Measuring and Mapping Scales of Cultural and Psychological Distance” (pre-print) and some in-progress follow ups using the technique at the University of Economics, Prague, Czechia.

I also presented some in progress theoretical and empirical work on “Hunter-gatherer egalitarianism and the evolution of evil eye beliefs”. Part of this work was based on a recent paper published in Nature Human Behaviour, with some context published in Evonomics and ProMarket (pre-print).

Beyond WEIRD Psychology: Measuring and Mapping Scales of Cultural and Psychological Distance at City University, London

I presented some work on measuring cultural distance “Beyond WEIRD Psychology: Measuring and Mapping Scales of Cultural and Psychological Distance” (pre-print) and some in-progress follow ups using the technique at City University in London, UK.

I also presented some in progress theoretical and empirical work on “Hunter-gatherer egalitarianism and the evolution of evil eye beliefs”. Part of this work was based on a recent paper published in Nature Human Behaviour, with some context published in Evonomics and ProMarket (pre-print).

Hunter-gatherer egalitarianism and the evolution of evil eye beliefs at University College London (UCL), London, UK

I presented some in progress theoretical and empirical work on “Hunter-gatherer egalitarianism and the evolution of evil eye beliefs” at the Biological Anthropology seminar series at University College London (UCL) in London, UK.

Part of this work was based on a recent paper published in Nature Human Behaviour, with some context published in Evonomics and ProMarket (pre-print) as well as some work on measuring cultural distance (pre-print).

A theory of human behaviour at The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

I gave a general talk on “A theory of human behavior? What would it look like and what would it offer?” at he University of Queensland, Brisbane. I discussed various bits of research including:

Muthukrishna, M. & Henrich, J. (2019). A Problem in Theory. Nature Human Behaviour. [Download]
Muthukrishna, M., Bell, A. V., Henrich, J., Curtin, C., Gedranovich, A., McInerney, J., & Thue, B. (under review). Beyond WEIRD Psychology: Measuring and Mapping Scales of Cultural and Psychological Distance. [Download]
Chudek, M., Muthukrishna, M. & Henrich, J. (2015) Cultural Evolution. In Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, 2nd Edition. Edited by D. M. Buss. [Download]
Muthukrishna, M., Doebeli, M., Chudek, M., & Henrich, J. (2018). The Cultural Brain Hypothesis: How culture drives brain expansion, sociality, and life history. PLOS Computational Biology, 14(11): e1006504. [Download] [Supplementary]
Stimmler, D. & Muthukrishna, M. (In prep). When Cooperation Promotes Corruption and Undermines Democracy.

As well as the Database of Religious History.

Cultural Evolution and the Measurement of Culture at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

I gave a general talk on “Cultural Evolution and the Measurement of Culture” at Monash University, Melbourne. I discussed various bits of research including:

Muthukrishna, M. & Henrich, J. (2019). A Problem in Theory. Nature Human Behaviour. [Download]
Muthukrishna, M., Bell, A. V., Henrich, J., Curtin, C., Gedranovich, A., McInerney, J., & Thue, B. (under review). Beyond WEIRD Psychology: Measuring and Mapping Scales of Cultural and Psychological Distance. [Download]
Chudek, M., Muthukrishna, M. & Henrich, J. (2015) Cultural Evolution. In Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, 2nd Edition. Edited by D. M. Buss. [Download]
Muthukrishna, M., Doebeli, M., Chudek, M., & Henrich, J. (2018). The Cultural Brain Hypothesis: How culture drives brain expansion, sociality, and life history. PLOS Computational Biology, 14(11): e1006504. [Download] [Supplementary]
Stimmler, D. & Muthukrishna, M. (In prep). When Cooperation Promotes Corruption and Undermines Democracy.

As well as the Database of Religious History. Many thanks to Nao Tsuchiya for inviting me.