Rice cultivation, cooperativeness, risk attitude and evidence for gene (DRD4) x culture co-evolution
Speaker: Prof. Richard Ebstein, National University of Singapore
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Topic: |
Rice cultivation, cooperativeness, risk attitude and evidence for gene (DRD4) x culture co-evolution
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Time & Date: |
10:30am-12:00pm, 2018/3/2 |
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Venue: |
Room A619, Teaching A |
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Speaker: |
Prof. Richard Ebstein, National University of Singapore |
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Detail: |
We make use of a range of individual choice tasks and behavioural games together with 1,104 university students in Beijing to investigate how culture induced by rice cultivation influences people's risk taking and cooperative behavior. We find that cooperativeness proxied by the level of contribution in the public goods game (PGG) varies positively with the proportion of rice cultivation in subjects' birth province. This finding is mutually replicated in an independent study by Zhou (2017). It is also corroborated by examining survey data relating to cooperativeness from the 26,000 strong China Family Panel Studies. At the same time, we find a positive relation between the proportion of rice cultivation and risk taking. This latter finding renders a novel perspective to the reported East-West differentiation in risk attitude and together with the link to cooperativeness points to an underlying social efficiency orientation. We further identify a genetic basis for both cooperativeness and risk taking. The dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4) exon III coding region polymorphisms 2R genotypes are associated with increased cooperativeness as well as risk taking. Finally, we find evidence of a gene-culture coevolution across 12,000 years in favor of the 2R genotypes of DRD4 using province-level history on the introduction of rice farming.
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