Cultural evolution needed to complete the Grossmann theory.

Grossmann used evolutionary analysis to argue for the adaptive nature of fearfulness. This analysis, however, falls short of addressing why negative affectivity is maladaptive in contemporary Western societies. Here, we fill the gap by documenting the implied cultural variation and considering cultural (rather than biological) evolution over the last 10,000 years to explain the observed cultural variation.

Varieties of interdependence and the emergence of the Modern West: Toward the globalizing of psychology.

Cultural psychology-the research field focusing on the mutual constitution of culture and the mind-has made great strides by documenting robust cultural variations in how people think, feel, and act. The cumulative evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that Westerners are independent, whereas those in the rest of the world are interdependent. Although this research traditionally examined North Americans and East Asians, recent research has extended this literature to other non-Western regions.