Ancient extreme cold adaptation is frequently modeled for Japanese (East Asian) populations in genomics, physiology, metabolism, glaucoma, morphology studies, due to their ancestral inhabitance of Siberia during the Ice Age, before migrating into Japan in the Holocene. My new peer-reviewed APA paper tried modeling it for cultural psychology and personality, and found high resemblence of Japanese (& East Asians) in personality profile, coping mechanisms, psychometrics to indigenous Inuit and Siberian groups. I attributed it to adaptation to their shared ancestral Siberian Ice Age environment, and tested to see if such personality patterns were considered adaptive in modern polar workers- and indeed it was. Having high emotional suppression, ingroup cohesion/unassertiveness, introversion, indirectness, self consciousness, social sensitivity, cautiousness, and perseverance, was found to so consistently predictive of success in polar workers/expeditioners that it is baked into US/CAN/NZ/DK/NO polar program selection criteria. I propose that this ancestral extreme cold adaptation better explains Japanese/East Asian culture & psychology than Confucianism and rice farming.
It has led to some successful predictions such as- Japanese polar expeditioners have easier time and more psychologically stable than North American expeditioners. East Asians have significantly lower rates of claustrophobia than South and Southeast Asians, controlled for national culture and farming ancestry.
There were several "Japanese" cultural practices also discovered to be shared by Inuit & Siberians- Haragei, oracle bone pyromancy, gijutsu wo nusumu, & minimal hugging/physical affection even amongst family.
The standard view amongst the Japanese public and academics is that Japanese psychology is primarily shaped by rice farming and Confucianism. I argue these traits precedes Confucianism, and that Siberian adaptation likely shaped early East Asian thought that was codified into Confucianism, as Confucianism was a revival of previously existing sociocultural ideals in the Zhou dynasty. Rice farming was also prevalent in Southeast Asia and South Asia (India had 2k+ more years of rice than Japan), yet their psych profile is highly different. I put out the full argument in my paper.
Anyway, here is the full paper https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2025-88410-001.html It's jargon heavy, you can dump it into some AI chatbot and ask for a layman's summary.
the paper's X thread went viral with 1mm views & famous folks reposting. It's highly sensationalized for viral potential but a good short summary https://x.com/arcticinstincts/status/1900223591750451276
Some Japanese scholars are reacting to it in Japanese, and some are writing formal commentaries https://x.com/Naotoodagiri/status/1901775091521986858
If you find this interesting, please share it with your Japanese friends (especially academics), I tried emailing it to NHK and Japantimes but got no reply. I welcome criticisms but only if you actually read the entire paper (or at least dump the PDF into a high quality AI for summary). If you are a scholar with strong thoughts, I also welcome you to write an academic level commentary, the journal is accepting them. You can DM me for editor email. Thank you!
by Turbulent-Pop-1507