Socioecological psychology is a framework for understanding humans’ cognitive, emotional, and behavioral adaptation to their natural and social environments. Early theories of socioecological psychology date back to Trivers and EO Wilson, and socioecological psychology has been a dominant paradigm in cultural psychology since early founders like Triandis. More recently, Shige Oishi has helped popularized the term in social psychology, and the framework has been key to the research program of each of the Chicago Culture Lab PIs.

Representative Publications:

Other Publications

Talhelm, T., & Dong, X. (2024). People quasi-randomly assigned to farm rice are more collectivistic than people assigned to farm wheat. Nature Communications, 15(1), 1782. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-44770-w

Harati, H., & Talhelm, T. (2023). Cultures in water-scarce environments are more long-term oriented. Psychological Science, 34(7), 095679762311725. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976231172500

Lee, C.-S., Talhelm, T., & Dong, X. (2023). People in historically rice-farming areas are less happy and socially compare more than people in wheat-farming areas. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 124(5), 935–957. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000324

Oishi, S., & Tsang, S. (2022). The socio‐ecological psychology of residential mobility. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 32(3), 519–536. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcpy.1310

Choi, H., & Oishi, S. (2020). The psychology of residential mobility: A decade of progress. Current Opinion in Psychology, 32, 72–75. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2019.07.008

Talhelm, T., & English, A. S. (2020). Historically rice-farming societies have tighter social norms in China and worldwide. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(33), 19816–19824. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1909909117

Oishi, S., Koo, M., & Buttrick, N. R. (2019). The socioecological psychology of upward social mobility. American Psychologist, 74(7), 751–763. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000422

Talhelm, T., Zhang, X., & Oishi, S. (2018). Moving chairs in Starbucks: Observational studies find rice-wheat cultural differences in daily life in China. Science Advances, 4(4), eaap8469. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aap8469

Oishi, S., Kesebir, S., Miao, F. F., Talhelm, T., Endo, Y., Uchida, Y., Shibanai, Y., & Norasakkunkit, V. (2013). Residential mobility increases motivation to expand social network: But why? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49(2), 217–223. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2012.10.008

Oishi, S., & Talhelm, T. (2012). Residential mobility: What psychological research reveals. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21(6), 425–430. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721412460675