Michael Muthukrishna

Michael Muthukrishna is a professor of economic psychology at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), in England. He is an affiliate of the Developmental Economics Group at the LSE's STICERD, technical director of UBC's Database of Religious History, and CIFAR's Azrieli Global Scholar in the Boundaries, Membership and Belonging;programme.

Research Muthukrishna's research addresses three main areas: The resulting "Theory of Human Behavior" informs various areas, including innovation, corruption, the emergence of large-scale cooperation, and cross-cultural navigation.

Key contributions Cultural brain hypothesis Muthukrishna has played a pivotal role in the development and advancement of the cultural brain hypothesis. His research in 2018 involved the construction of a model that was firmly rooted in this hypothesis, shedding light on critical relationships among brain size, group size, social learning, and mating structures.

Muthukrishna's work was instrumental in formulating this model, which operated based on three fundamental assumptions:

Combining brain size, complexity, and organization into a single variable Establishing that a larger brain equates to a greater capacity for acquiring adaptive knowledge Demonstrating that an increase in adaptive knowledge enhances the fitness of organisms

Through evolutionary simulations, Muthukrishna and his colleagues were able to validate the existence of the hypothesized relationships. They argued that while individual intelligence is important, it is the rapid advancement of human culture, technology, and knowledge driven by culmulative efforts and knowledge.

Muthukrisna provides context and a solution for this issue in a 2020 paper, where he introduces the concept of "cultural distance" and "psychological distance" as measures to quantify the differences between populations.

Culturalytik's distinctive feature lies in its utilization of advanced methodologies to accurately identify and analyse culturally significant aspects. 2016 CGS/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award in the Social Sciences

The book offers a multidisciplinary framework that delves into human behavior, culture, and society. Muthukrishna, M., Bell, A.V., Henrich, J., Curtin, C.M., Gedranovich, A., McInerney, J. and Thue, B. (2020). Beyond Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) Psychology: Measuring and Mapping Scales of Cultural and Psychological Distance. Psychological Science, 31(6), p. 095679762091678. . Muthukrishna, M. and Henrich, J. (2020). The Origins and Psychology of Human Cooperation. Annual Review of Psychology, 72(1). .