The origins of cultural divergence: evidence from Vietnam

Cultural norms diverge substantially across societies, often within the same country. We propose and investigate a self-domestication/selective migration hypothesis, proposing that cultural differences along the individualism–collectivism dimension are driven by the out-migration of individualistic people from collectivist core regions of states to peripheral frontier areas, and that such patterns of historical migration are reflected even in the current distribution of cultural norms. Gaining independence in 939 CE after about a thousand years of Chinese colonization, historical Vietnam emerged in the region that is now north Vietnam with a collectivist social organization. From the eleventh to the eighteenth centuries, historical Vietnam gradually expanded its territory southward to the Mekong River Delta through repeated waves of conquest and migration. Using a nationwide household survey, a population census, and a lab-in-the-field experiment, we demonstrate that areas annexed earlier to historical Vietnam are currently more prone to collectivist norms, and that these cultural norms are embodied in individual beliefs. Relying on many historical accounts, together with various robustness checks, we argue that the southward out-migration of individualistic people during the eight centuries of the territorial expansion is an important driver, among many others, of these cultural differences.