Climate, Affluence, and Culture (Culture and Psychology)
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 5/28/2009
EAN 9780521517874, ISBN10: 0521517877
Hardcover, 264 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
Everyone, everyday, everywhere has to cope with climatic cold or heat to satisfy survival needs, using money. This point of departure led to a decade of innovative research on the basis of the tenet that climate and affluence influence each other's impact on culture. Evert Van de Vliert discovered survival cultures in poor countries with demanding cold or hot climates, self-expression cultures in rich countries with demanding cold or hot climates, and easygoing cultures in poor and rich countries with temperate climates. These findings have implications for the cultural consequences of global warming and local poverty. Climate protection and poverty reduction are used in combination to sketch four scenarios for shaping cultures, from which the world community has to make a principal and principled choice soon.
Part I. Introduction
1. Creators of culture
Part II. Climate, Cash, and Work
2. Climate colors life satisfaction
3. Cash compensates for climate
4. Work copes with context
Part III. Survival, Cooperation, and Organization
5. Survival, self-expression, and easygoingness
6. Cooperation
7. Organization
Part IV. Conclusion
8. Bird's-eye views of culture
Appendix A. Climate indices.
“There is no doubt that human societies have had to adapt to the weather they get, but theories about the link between climate and culture had so far never reached scientific status. By introducing affluence as a controlling variable, Evert Van de Vliert opens new perspectives to an old debate. His exploration into explaining the sources of some of the most fundamental differences between human cultures makes very good reading indeed.”
—Geert Hofstede, author of Culture's Consequences
“Evert Van de Vliert presents an elegantly constructed account of his 15-year search for an adequate understanding of how climate conditions an impressively broad range of aspects of human behaviour. His groundbreaking elaboration of the links between the effects of climate and wealth is compelling. He provides a finely balanced account, integrating an accessible style with an ongoing thorough and fair-minded scrutiny of alternatives to his own perspective. This book is readable and timely, with important implications for the management of climatic change.”
—Peter B. Smith, Emeritus Professor of Social Psychology, University of Sussex, UK