Solving a Mystery for Satoshi Kanazawa

February 14, 2013

Over at the Big Think, psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa lists what he considers the unsolved mysteries of evolutionary psychology. One of these mysteries is the question of why people with many siblings have many children. According to Kanazawa this doesn’t make any evolutionary sense at all,


I think the solution to this mystery can be found in viewing extraversion and introversion as evolutionary strategies. There is plenty of research showing that extraverts are more sexually active than introverts. This would lead to them having more children (we’re dealing with an evolutionary time scale so we can ignore the effect of contraception), and since it’s also a highly inheritable trait it would make a person with many siblings more likely to have extraverted parents and for that reason he is likely to have inherited their extraversion and have many children himself.

But if so, why aren’t we all extraverts – if it’s enables us to spread our genes so well? To understand this I think we need to look at differences in this trait between people living in environments with varying degrees of resources. In good times with plenty of food available, extraverts would propagate and spread their genes by having many children but a relatively small parental investment. But sooner or later hard times would come and then the introverted strategy of few children and high parental investment would pay off. If there is a scarcity of food, giving all you can spare to one child rather than sharing it between 4-5 children becomes a winning strategy. That way, hard times would ensure that genes for introversion would survive.

Now, it’s a fact that different regions vary in resources. People who have originated in a cold climate, or at least in a region with long cold winters should, if this theory is correct, have a higher level of introversion than people from warmer regions. We are all familiar with the stereotypes of the introverted northerners and extraverted southerners. Is there any truth in it?

Looking at extraversion scores from Richard Lynn’s study (1995) of 36 (I omitted Iceland because it has a microscopic population) nations there is actually a bit of a pattern supporting the theory.

The average level of extraversion for all countries was 18.4. But those who originated in a cold climate (Nordic or Central Asian) averaged at 17.2, while those originating in a warm climate averaged at 20.0, with intermediary countries averaging at 17.9.

Extraversion scores by country and climatic origin.

Extraversion scores by country and climatic origin.

I’m probably not the first person to have this idea but since Kanazawa insists that it’s a mystery and this seems to be a plausible explanation, I thought I should share it.

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