NCEAS

The latent prevalence of a long-lived and common brain parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, explains a statistically significant portion of the variance in aggregate neuroticism among populations, as well as in the 'neurotic' cultural dimensions of sex roles and uncertainty avoidance. Spurious or non-causal correlations between aggregate personality and aspects of climate and culture that influence T. gondii transmission could also drive these patterns. A link between culture and T. gondii hypothetically results from a behavioral manipulation that the parasite uses to increase its transmission to the next host in the life cycle: a cat. While latent toxoplasmosis is usually benign, the parasite's subtle effect on individual personality appears to alter the aggregate personality at the population level. Drivers of the geographical variation in the prevalence of this parasite include the effects of climate on the persistence of infectious stages in soil, the cultural practices of food preparation and cats as pets. Some variation in culture, therefore, may ultimately be related to how climate affects the distribution of T. gondii, though the results only explain a fraction of the variation in two of the four cultural dimensions, suggesting that if T. gondii does influence human culture, it is only one among many factors. Age-adjusted prevalence, aggregate neuroticism (N), the cultural dimensions of uncertainty avoidance (U) and masculinity (M) among nations. Original references for most of the T. gondii data used are derived from Tenter et al. (2000). Prevalence was age-adjusted to 22 years. Key to references: 1, Tenter et al. (2000); 2, Koskiniemi et al. (1992); 3, Szenasi et al. (1997); 4, Konishi et al. (2000); 5, Flynn (1979); 6, Franklin et al. (1993); 7, Win et al. (1997); 8, Vlaspolder et al. (2001); 9, Morris& Croxson (2004); 10, Cantella et al. (1974); 11, Malgorzata et al. (2001); 12, Batet et al. (2004); 13, Evengard et al. (2001); 14, Jacquier et al. (1995); 15, Jones et al. (2001); 16, Bobic et al. (1998); 17, Lester (2000); 18, McCrae& Terracciano (2005); 19, Hofstede (2001).