Demographic Acronym "WEIRD" Overused in Psychology Research

The acronym "WEIRD," which stands for Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic, was introduced by Joseph Henrich, Steven J. Heine, and Ara Norenzayan in 2010 to highlight the fact that a significant portion of psychological research has been conducted on a very specific subset of the world's population—mostly individuals from North America, Western Europe, and other developed, democratic countries. Their aim was to signify that these populations, often university students, are not representative of humanity as a whole, yet their behaviors and psychological traits are frequently generalized across all humans.

The use of the acronym "WEIRD" in psychology literature has reached a point where it almost parodies itself, with many researchers overusing the term to categorize and simplify diverse populations. WEIRD was initially a useful reminder of the bias toward certain demographics that dominate psychological research. However, its constant invocation has made it a reductive tool that oversimplifies the global diversity of human behavior. The trend of referring to any study outside of North America or Western Europe as "non-WEIRD" does little justice to the depth and variability of human experiences and the contexts in which they occur. Instead of using such a binary distinction, it is more informative to be specific about the populations and regions being studied. Researchers should aim to specify where and how studies are conducted, acknowledging the local cultural, social, and economic conditions that shape the sample population. Fortunately, each population, region, or country has a name by which it can be identified.

A frequent phrase that has emerged is along the lines of "the strength of the current paper is that we utilized a sample of a non-WEIRD [Henrich et al., 2010] population." While this is intended to signal that the research moves beyond the traditional Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic populations, the repeated use of such statements can become a hollow marker of diversity rather than a meaningful engagement with the complexities of cross-cultural research. Moreover, splitting the world into WEIRD and non-WEIRD regions creates an artificial dichotomy that reinforces stereotypes, where "WEIRD" becomes synonymous with modernity and advancement, while the rest is framed as a collective "other," lacking specificity and individuality. To progress, psychology as a field must move away from the binary WEIRD versus non-WEIRD distinction, and the acronym altogether, and instead adopt a practice of specifying the populations and regions under study.

So, please forget about "WEIRD" and do your research!