Thomas Talhelm

Thomas Talhelm is an Associate Professor of Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where he conducts groundbreaking research on cultural psychology. His work explores how historical agricultural practices have shaped modern cultural differences across regions and nations, with particular focus on East Asia.

Dr. Talhelm earned his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Virginia and a B.A. with Highest Honors in psychology and Spanish from the University of Michigan. Before his academic career, he lived in China for five years as a Princeton in Asia fellow teaching high school in Guangzhou, a freelance journalist in Beijing, and later as a Fulbright scholar and NSF Graduate Research Fellow.

Talhelm is renowned for developing the "rice theory of culture," which posits that historical rice farming fostered more interdependent cultures compared to wheat farming. His research demonstrates how these agricultural legacies continue to influence modern psychological differences, affecting thought styles, social norms, emotion perception, and responses to public health crises. He employs innovative methodologies including large-scale observational studies in public spaces across China, natural language processing of social media data, and controlled experiments comparing regions along China's rice-wheat border. His work challenges simplistic East-West cultural dichotomies by revealing substantial psychological variation within China itself.

Analysis of Talhelm's recent publications shows a consistent expansion of his theoretical framework into new domains including water scarcity effects on cultural values, bicultural identity among young Chinese, and nuanced examinations of how collectivistic cultures compete. His research increasingly combines traditional psychological methods with computational approaches to analyze massive datasets, while maintaining his signature focus on ecological determinants of cultural variation.

• Princeton in Asia fellow
• Fulbright scholar
• NSF Graduate Research Fellow

Professor Talhelm actively mentors graduate students, reviewing PhD applications annually for students interested in culture, politics, or social ecology. He teaches the course "Culture (And Why It Matters)" at Chicago Booth. Beyond academia, Talhelm founded Smart Air, a social enterprise providing affordable air purifiers to improve air quality, reflecting his commitment to applying psychological insights to real-world problems.