If you¡¯ve spent any time in Japan you will have heard the expression, ¡±Deru kugi wa utareru¡± (¡°The nail that sticks out gets hammered down¡°). The phrase is used to explain how Japanese society traditionally prefers conformity and social harmony to independence and individual expression. There is a similar saying in China ¡ª ¡°The shot hits the bird that pokes its head out¡± ¡ª and no doubt something equivalent in South Korea, too. East Asian countries tend to have collectivist societies, while individualism typically prevails in the West.
Over the years, if I wondered at all why East and West were different in this way I think I¡¯ve put it down to something to do with the fact that the societies were steeped in values from Confucianism and Christianity, respectively. I didn¡¯t think about any underlying evolutionary reason, probably because I thought culture and politics were more powerful, and quicker, at shaping high-level things such as societal structure.
But Joan Chiao, a psychologist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, has thought a lot about it, and she has put together a fascinating idea: It comes down to a short chunk of DNA that we all have in varying amounts.
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