December, 14 — Regular Seminar

Topic: The Rice Theory: Manspreading and What Happened When China Randomly Assigned People to Farm Rice and Wheat
Speaker: Thomas Talhelm (University of Chicago, USA)

The Laboratory for Comparative Social Research announces the next regular seminar, which will be held as a zoom session on December, 14 at 04:00 p.m. CET (06:00 p.m. Moscow time). Thomas Talhelm (University of Chicago, USA) will deliver a report "The Rice Theory: Manspreading and What Happened When China Randomly Assigned People to Farm Rice and Wheat".

The seminar will take place online. To participate, please, register via the link.

Abstract. The rice theory is the idea traditional rice farming’s labor and irrigation demands made rice-farming cultures more interdependent cultures. I’ll present data showing that northern and southern China have cultural differences that fall along the historical borders of rice and wheat. And since most of East Asia was built on rice farming, rice could help explain larger East-West cultural differences. In this talk, I’ll show new data on manspreading around the world. We coded how much space 7,000 people were taking up in Starbucks in nine countries. I’ll also talk about what happened in a rare moment of history when China randomly assigned people to farm rice or wheat.

Biography. Thomas Talhelm is an Associate Professor of Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He researches the agricultural roots of cultural differences and how people (even researchers!) get collectivism wrong. Thomas has lived in China for seven years as a Princeton in Asia Fellow, a freelance journalist, and a Fulbright scholar. When he should have been writing his dissertation, he founded a social enterprise called Smart Air, which makes low-cost, open-data-backed air purifiers to help people in China and India protect themselves from air pollution.

 

Everyone interested is invited!

Working language is English.