The WEIRDest Theories in the World: The Narrow Intellectual Foundations of a Global Science of Mind

<p>Modern psychology has attended closely to the limits of WEIRD samples. At the same time, the field has paid far less attention to the foundational narrative which preceded and contributed to a WEIRD sampling bias. This paper connects Modern psychology has attended closely to the limits of WEIRD samples. At the same time, the field has paid far less attention to the foundational narrative that preceded and contributed to WEIRD sampling bias. This paper traces these patterns to two interconnected canons: an institutional canon that has traditionally centered Euro-American laboratory psychology and a philosophical canon that has framed foundational questions about mind primarily through a Western intellectual lineage. We conceptualize this pattern as disciplinary selectionism, whereby the privileging of particular intellectual traditions constrains the theories, constructs, methods, and ultimately the populations through which psychological knowledge is generated. Drawing on transregional histories of psychological science and philosophies of mind, the paper formulates a broader institutional and philosophical canon and discusses the contributions of scholars, traditions, and intellectual lineages often left outside psychology’s standard narrative. The aim is to broaden the historical and conceptual foundations of psychological science and thereby expand the areas of inquiry and explanatory frameworks available to the field. From this perspective, the WEIRD sampling problem is not merely a methodological consideration but one visible expression of a centuries-long process of disciplinary selectionism that has shaped the contours of modern psychological science.skews sampling to a WEIRD philosophy of mind, expressed through two interconnected canons: an institutional canon that centers Euro-American laboratory psychology and a philosophical canon that incorrectly represents questions of mind as emerging primarily from a Western intellectual lineage. Drawing on transregional histories of psychological science and philosophies of mind, the paper formulates a broader institutional and philosophical canon and discusses the contributions of scholars, traditions, and intellectual lineages often left outside psychology’s standard narrative. The aim of this paper is to broaden the historical and conceptual foundations of psychological science and thus expand areas of inquiry and explanatory frameworks available to the field.</p>