Why ar e homicide r at es so var iable Why t alk about homicide in a symposium on bet ween t imes and places ? cult ur al psychology ? Martin Daly & Margo Wilson Department of Psychology McMaster University Because homicide is a well-documented, important behavioural phenomenon, daly@mcmaster.ca wilson@mcmaster.ca with a high degree of cross-national and historical variability that is readily quantified and is commonly attributed to cultural differences . Symposium on Cult ural & Ecological Foundat ions of t he Mind Hokkaido Universit y June, 2003 1996 homicide rat es in some indust rialized count ries Two views of t he sour ces of cult ur al diver sit y (source : Unit ed Nat ions Demographic Yearbook) (1) Culture is autonomous, idiosyncratic, and inexplicable by Ireland 6 per million persons per annum appeal to current ecological / economic factors. Japan 6 U.K. 9 Extreme versions have been articulated by many sociologists Spain 9 and anthropologists. Example : Sweden 10 "Culture is a thing sui generis which can only be explained France 11 in terms of itself… Omnis cultura ex cultura " Germany 11 R.H. Lowie (1917) Culture and ethnology. NY: Basic Books Netherlands 12 South Korea 16 The def ensible version of “cult ural det erminist ” posit ion # 1 : Canada 17 Idiosyncratic histories create differences that are “arbitrary” in Italy 17 Australia 18 this sense : Nothing extrinsic to the cultural phenomenon itself Singapore 18 presently favours maintaining it in one form rather than another. New Zealand 20 lexicon is the prototype: You say “arigato”. We say “thank you”. Switzerland 27 see Richerson & Boyd (2004) The nature of cultures , chapter 2. U.S.A. 94
I s t he US r elat ively violent because of it s cult ur e ? Two views of t he sour ces of cult ur al diver sit y (2) Culture is a set of systematic “evoked” responses to P olicy-makers apparent ly t hink so. Example : material and social conditions. " In the five years from 1992 through 1996… Toronto Extreme versions have been articulated by many Marxists and [Canada] experienced exactly 100 gun homicides some Darwinians. Example : [while] Chicago, an American city of comparable size, had 3,063. … If we really work hard at it … we can end “I, personally, find culture unnecessary. " the culture of violence in this nation.” Betzig (1997) US Attorney General Janet Reno, speaking to the American Bar Association in 1998. The def ensible version of “ecological det erminist ” posit ion # 2 : Certain ecologies favour certain social practices, which, in Media comment at ors t hink so, t oo. Example : conjunction with panhuman cognitive processes and emotions, "Michael Moore clearly demonstrates how a lead to convergent cultural “syndromes” of similar institutions, culture of fear leads to a culture of violence." ideologies, and values among peoples with distinct histories. (e.g. Pastoral way of life engenders patrilocal polygynous marriage, bride British review of Bowling for Columbine , a film about wealth, patrilineal inheritance, blood feud, “culture of honour”, et cetera ) violence and the US “gun culture”, and winner of the 2002 Academy Award for Best Documentary. Cult ur e of violence in t he US ? Cult ur e of violence in t he US ? In addition to the fact that southerners kill at higher rates than Richard Nisbett & Dov Cohen have documented differences northerners, Cohen & Nisbett have shown that they between the US north and south in homicide rates. - oppose gun control more. - favour the death penalty more. - are more sympathetic to those “provoked” into violence. Homicides committed by white - are more supportive of military spending. - are more lenient towards men who assault wives. males per 100,000 - approve of physical punishment of children more. In other words, southerners possess (and transmit) attitudes and values that legitimate and encourage violence, especially violence in defence of personal and familial honour. Why? Cohen & Nisbet t invoke dif f erences in cult ural origins wit h an hist orical (but no longer present ) ecological rat ionale: t he Europeans who set t led t he sout h had a past oral background Cities of < 200,000 pop Cities of > 200,000 pop whereas t hose in t he nort h had been crop f armers and t ownsf olk.
Cult ural inf luence on a physiological response Wolf gang & Ferracut i (1967) proposed t hat “subcult ures of violence” explain regional and racial dif f erences in US homicide rat es. Men raised in US south exhibited rapid rises in testosterone and cortisol in response to an insult. Men from the north did not. Within certain “reference groups”, violence is normative and enc ouraged, while other groups within the same larger society rarely resort to violence Cult ural inert ia and socialize their children to abhor it. Current circumstances were identical: all subjects were students at the same (northern) university. We (Daly & Wilson 1989) crit icized t his t heory as f ollows: Invoking “culture” like this implies that a difference between two groups is a product of their distinct cumulative histories rather than a product of present differences in the external forces acting upon the two groups… Attributing violence among black Americans to a black subculture, for example, subtly implies that the social problems of disadvantaged minorities are intrinsically generated rather than being the products of exploitation and economic inopportunity, and that it is mere happenstance that the poorer classes in industrialized society e xhibit more violence than the privileged… If we think we can explain why poor young men behave violently in Cohen et al. terms of the “transmission” of “values” within a “subculture,” then we (1996) JPSP 70 : 945-960 are unlikely to seek more utilitarian explanations. Gini coefficient of income inequality = Area 1 / (Area 1 + Area 2) Local levels of income inequality predict homicide rates Homicide rates in 50 US states (1990) and 10 Canadian provinces (1988-92) as a function of the Gini coefficient of income inequality 1.0 180 Homicides per Million Persons per Annum ( USA Line of equal income 150 ( Canada 120 Cumulative Proportion 90 of Income Area 1 60 Lorenz curve 30 0 Area 2 0.35 0.38 0.41 0.44 0.47 0 Gini (total household income) Poorest Wealthiest Income Units (e.g. Households) Daly, Wilson & Vasdev (2001) Canadian Journal of Criminology 43: 219- 236
Var iabilit y over t ime. Richerson & Boyd’s opening salvo in chapt er 1 (“Cult ure is essent ial”) Trends in t he annual US homicide rat e, 1900 - 2000 In their book, Culture of Honor , Richard Nisbett and Dov Cohen argue that the South is more violent than the North because Southerners hav e 120 different culturally acquired beliefs about honor than Northerners. Southerners, they argue, believe more strongly than Northerners that a 100 person’s reputation is important and worth defending even at great cost. … Statistical patterns of violence are consistent with Nisbett & Cohen’s 80 Homicides explanation, but not with competing hypotheses based on economic or per million environmental factors. Neither White per capita income nor July 60 persons temperature explains the variation in homicide within the South. … per annum 40 The Southern culture of honor arose and was for a long time maintained by an environment that made it an efficacious means of protecting afamily’s livelihood. Today, few Southerners are pastoralists, and few Northerners 20 are peasant farmers. Nonetheless, these striking differences persist. 0 Richerson & Boyd (2004) The nature of cultures . 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 Year Spousal SROK (Sex r at io of killing) Why is t he US so unusual in it s Sex Rat io of Killing ? U.S.A. It’s not because of an equalizing effect of guns. Scotland Detroit Canada Chicago New S. Wales England&Wales England & Wales NSW Denmark Other Tiv etc. Canada Shootings Maria, Bhil etc. 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 SROK 0 20 40 60 80 Wilson & Daly (1992) Number of husbands killed by wives for Criminology 30: 189-215 Wilson & Daly (1992) Criminology 30: 189-215 every 100 wives killed by husbands.
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