Thomas Talhelm

Associate Professor, Arizona State University
  • United States of America

About Thomas Talhelm

I'm an Associate Professor holding the Robert Cialdini Endowed Professorship at Arizona State University, where I research culture. I study how rice and wheat agriculture have given northern and southern China two very different cultures, including whether people move chairs in Starbucks. I also study how people misunderstand collectivism (people often forget the suspicion!) and how the power of money over psychology is bigger in Western cultures.

Intro Content

Nature Communications

What I Learned When I Stopped Studying College Students

Many psychology studies use college student samples or crowdwork websites like Amazon's MTurk, but is it wise to build psychological theory on this small slice of humanity?

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Behind the Paper

Recent Comments

Apr 09, 2026

Thanks to @Liuqing Wei, @Alexander English, and many others who helped construct the collectivism index. 👏 The full text is available without a paywall: https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/5/3/pgag021/8510565

Mar 13, 2026

Thanks to my co-authors, who did most of the hard work! @Liuqing Wei @Alexander English 👏

Oct 28, 2025

Thanks to the many researchers who worked on this project. 👏 @Alex English organized this massive data collection. @Liuqing Wei and @Rongtian worked hard too. And many other researchers too! 

Oct 28, 2025

The full paper is available without a paywall at SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5537598

Sep 22, 2025

The original study is available without a paywall here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5288684

Sep 08, 2025

The paper is available to download without a paywall at the Social Science Research Network: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5424001

Aug 10, 2025

The full paper is available without a paywall here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5317213

Jun 12, 2025

The paper is available free to download on SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4569952

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