02.种什么作物，决定了思维方式What crops are grown determines the way of thinking

Many people have the impression that Europeans and Americans have a completely different way of thinking to Asians, with Europe and America tending towards individualism and Asia mostly towards collectivism. But why? A PhD in social psychology at an American university has recently come up with a completely new explanation. He believes that what crop is grown determines the way of thinking. People in rice growing areas think more collectively and those in wheat growing areas think more individually.
Why? Because growing rice and wheat are two completely different sets of production methods. Rice requires cooperation between farmers. Water flows from the upstream field to the downstream field, and each family has to agree on the management of the water flow, otherwise there will be no water for that family if the flow is cut off. Wheat is different, it is dry, less difficult to grow and has been grown with the help of livestock for over 2,000 years, so there is no need for complex cooperation. The rice growing area required cooperation and developed collective thinking; the wheat growing area did not require much cooperation and developed individual thinking.
To prove this, this psychologist collected a lot of data and shares one of the easiest to understand, the divorce rate. They found that, at about the same economic level, the divorce rate was 50% lower in the rice growing provinces of China than in the wheat growing provinces. The reason for this is that people in the rice growing areas think more collectively, value relationships and are more inclined to maintain their marriages; people in the wheat growing areas think more individually, value themselves and so are more likely to get together and break up.
Nowadays, over 90% of the world's rice is grown in Asia; in Europe and the US, wheat is largely grown, which is probably one of the reasons why Asians think collectively and Europeans and the US think individually. So you see, culture may also be determined by crops.
重点词汇
social psychology 社会心理学
come up with 想出 ; 提出 ; 设法拿出
很多人都有一种印象：欧美人和亚洲人有完全不同的思维方式，欧美倾向于个人主义，亚洲大多数倾向集体主义。但为什么呢？最近美国一所大学有位社会心理学博士，提出了一个全新解释。他认为，种什么作物，决定了思维方式。水稻种植区的人更多是集体思维，小麦种植区的人更多是个人思维。
为什么？因为种水稻和种小麦是两套完全不同的生产方式。水稻要求农民之间通力合作，水从上游的田流向下游的田，各家之间水流管理必须达成一致，不然这家一截流那家就没水了。小麦不一样啊，旱作的，种植难度小，而且在2000多年前就开始用牲口帮忙了，不需要复杂合作。水稻种植区需要合作，发展出了集体思维；小麦种植区对合作要求不高，就发展出了个人思维。
为了证明这点，这位心理学家收集了很多数据，给大家分享一个最容易理解的，离婚率。他们发现，经济水平差不多的情况下，中国种植水稻的省份比种植小麦省份离婚率低50%，为啥呢，水稻种植区的人更集体思维，重关系，更倾向于维护婚姻；小麦种植区的人更个人思维，重自我，所以容易好聚好散。
现在，全世界90%以上的水稻都种植在亚洲；欧美基本种植小麦，这可能就是亚洲人是集体思维，欧美是个人思维的原因之一。所以你看，文化说不定也是由农作物决定的。