MOVE UP

DR. CLOTAIRE RAPAILLE AND DR. ANDRES

ROEMER
Group Members

 Shreya Chitrakar
 Anisha Shrestha
 Bina Lama
 Sohil Parajuli
 Ashutosh Dhanju
 Sanjiv Yadav
Introduction

 Move Up is a non fiction book written by Dr.Clotaire Rapaille and

Dr. Andres Roemer in 2013 that explains upward social mobility from a
biological and cultural perspective
 Archetype exists in all cultures and serves as an indicator for evolution of a
culture which is encapsulated in the phrase MOVE UP
 This book asks meaningful question about life and the reason behind which
people join religious groups, go on a diet, yoga , meditation etc
 Move up is about uncovering the reasons why some cultures move up
than others
Contd

 Cultures have to move up and to do so they must allow their members to

grow and each culture has a different strategy for its survival and making it
work
 Our human nature always pushes us to achieve something better and
hope for the best
 Some countries can provide their people with prosperity while some
cannot and some blame colonialism, climate, political institutions etc for it
 Daron and James in their book ‘Why Nations Fail’ said constitutional
democracy and equitable access to capital is the way to success for any
nation
Contd

 Move UP is about uncovering the reasons why some cultures move faster
than others
 Singapore vs. France – What is it that Singaporeans have done right and
French are doing wrong?
 Singapore separated in 1964, had no land, resources, economy or
agriculture but still how did they advance?
 Lee Kuan Yew said ,”One word: clean. We are going to start with clean.
Everything is going to be clean, your clothes, home and bodies.”
 By focusing on one simple dimension within the culture, the society
changed
 Became more organized, disciplined, and helped individuals move up
 Movement of people another indicator of culture moving up or down
 Some walls are built between nations to keep people in or to keep them out; to
show how competitive the world has become at present
 Questions about culture like “Why are most Catholic countries poor and more of the
Protestants ones rich?
 GNH (Gross National Happiness) pioneered by the government of Bhutan; though
this might be inconvenient or inaccurate
 “A good deal of innovation and drive can arise out of discontent”
 Moving up: the degree to which a country enables its people to evolve both
socially and economically to become happier and feel more purposeful
 Mobility is increased not only by better educational opportunities, better access to
quality medical care, the rooting out of corruption, open exchange of ideas and
fostering innovation
 But whether a country fosters abandoned cultural practices that limit the
opportunities of people
MOVING UP
Contd

• Moving up : The degree to which a country enables its people to evolve

both socially and economically and also crucially, to become happier
and feel more purposeful
• Moving up not only in terms of advancing up the educational and
economic ladder, but moving up in the understanding of issues and
seeking of solutions within the country, moving up in the evolution of
cultural practices and beliefs , and in the movement towards better
institutions and policies that foster well being
• Contributing to mobility is whether a country fosters the abandonment of
cultural practices that are harmful to people and are limiting their
opportunities for personal growth
• Some culture help you survive and reproduce, whereas others make this
difficult
• We all are driven by the same biological forces
Contd

 Different group of people systematically process the same information in

their own way leading to differences between groups in behavior,
tradition , rituals, practices, attitude etc
 The belief that everyone must have equal opportunity for empowerment
and growth enhances mobility
 Each culture has word-codes-that define it
 In US where the key verb is “to do” action plans and ‘to do’ lists are very
popular
 In all cultures we studied we are looking for reptilian dimension behind the
collective cultural unconscious. We came to realize that the way a culture
deals with sex, survival, security and success( we call it Four S’s )
predetermines your potential to move up 
Contd

 According to analysis of the mobility of nations culture, we will rank

countries by how well they enable their people to satisfy, or channel, their
biological drives.
 Rather than subscribing to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we devised our
own breakdown of the biological imperatives in to our 4S means – survival ,
sex, security and success.
 Evolutionary psychology has convincingly argued that our drive for success
is closely related to the many benefit of survival, as well as our ability to
bond with our preferred mates.
 Our argument is that the better a country is at fostering the satisfaction of
the biological needs, the more conductive to mobility it is.
 Herbert spencer wrote about the survival of the fittest in his book principle
of biology, referring to Darwin’s idea of natural selection.
 In our book, we discus the survival of the ‘up’ culture, a culture where
people can prosper.
 We see that some culture that offer equal opportunity , predictability and
flexibility have greater chances of moving up.