The Psychology of Moral Communities, Part 3 of 5: Race Differences in Personality

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Race Differences in Personality

Race differences in personality explain the unique tendency of Whites to create moral communities where reputation is paramount. The critical role for reputation implies that we evaluate the personalities of group members and potential group members. A reputation as heartless, calculating, untrustworthy or selfish is not going to help one’s status in a moral community, whereas the opposite of these traits will be welcomed. Because of the long history of moral communities in the West, it is expected that research findings will show race differences in traits conducive to membership in a moral community.

As an introduction to discussing race differences in personality, I will briefly discuss an evolutionary theory of personality systems and how they relate to the psychiatric classification of psychopathic personality, the subject of Richard Lynn’s Race Differences in Psychopathic Personality which is discussed below.[1] Bear in mind that individual differences in all personality traits are heritable—approximately half of the variation between individuals in personality traits is attributable to genetic influences.[2] 

Some Basic Personality Systems

The Behavioral Approach System (BAS). One set of traits that contributes to reputation within a group as well as to psychopathic personality relates to seeking reward; collectively they are here labeled the Behavioral Approach System (BAS). Among even the most primitive mammals, there must be mechanisms designed to approach the environment to obtain resources, prototypically foraging and mate attraction systems. The BAS evolved from systems designed to motivate approach toward sources of reward (e.g., sexual gratification, dominance, control of territory) that occurred as enduring and recurrent features of the environments in which animals or humans evolved.[3] In the contemporary world, these reward mechanisms can be triggered not only by aspects of the environment humans evolved in, such as social dominance and mating situations, but also by things like synthetic drugs designed to trigger evolved reward centers. These reward systems overlap anatomically and neurophysiologically with aggression, perhaps because aggression is a prepotent way of dealing with the frustration of expecting a reward but not getting it.[4]

The mechanisms underlying the BAS show sex differences in accord with the evolutionary theory of sex, which predicts that on average males will be higher than females on the BAS system because they have more to gain by social dominance, aggression and control of resources than females.[5] This is because successful, socially dominant males are much better able than females to translate their success into reproductive success by attracting high-quality females, extra-pair copulations, and, in the vast majority of human societies, multiple mates. Fundamentally, males benefit by being able to control females much more than the reverse, since female reproduction is constrained by the demands of pregnancy and lactation. For example, by leading successful armies, Genghis Khan and his direct descendants were able to set up harems in areas they conquered, with the result that he now has around 32 million direct descendants spread throughout Asia. No female could do that in a similar time period given the limitations of pregnancy and lactation.

As a result, it’s no surprise that among human adults, behavioral approach is also associated with aggressiveness and higher levels of sexual experiences and positive emotions (e.g., emotions one feels when achieving social dominance or attaining goals).[6],[7]

Relevant to psychopathic personality, there are evolutionarily expected sex differences in aggression, pleasure-seeking (including sensation-seeking), and externalizing psychiatric disorders (e.g., conduct disorder, oppositional/defiant disorder, and aggression). Moreover, the social interactions of boys are more characterized by dominance interactions and forceful, demanding interpersonal styles.[8] On the other hand, females are more prone to depression which is associated with low levels of behavioral approach.[9] In fact, anhedonia (lack of ability to experience pleasure) and negative mood are primary symptoms of depression within the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) classification.[10]

The Love/Nurturance Pair Bonding System. In Chapter 3 it was argued that Western populations are more inclined to value the traits of love/nurturance in prospective mates as an aspect of individualist mating patterns and, ultimately, because of the need to cement close family relationships and paternal investment in the harsh environments that northern hunter-gatherers evolved in. Unlike kinship-based societies, marriage is exogamous and based at least partly on personal attraction, including personality characteristics like Love/Nurturance. This trait is also important for status within moral communities. Most people would not find cold-heartedness attractive in a potential marriage partner, nor would they desire cold-hearted people to be part of their moral community because such persons would tend to be untrustworthy and selfish. The following presents a fuller account of the Love/Nurturance system.

Mammalian females give birth and suckle their young. This has led to a host of adaptations for mothering, an outgrowth of which are pair-bonding mechanisms present also in males, although to a lesser extent on average.[11] For species that develop pair bonds and other types of close relationships involving nurturance and empathy, one expects the evolution of a system designed to make such relationships psychologically rewarding. The adaptive space of Love/Nurturance therefore becomes elaborated into a mechanism for cementing adult relationships of love and empathy that facilitate the transfer of resources to others, prototypically within the family.

The personality trait of Love/Nurturance is associated with relationships of intimacy and other long-term relationships, especially family relationships involving investment in children.[12] Individual differences in warmth and affection observable in early parent-child relationships, including secure attachments, are conceptually linked with Love/Nurturance later in life.[13] Secure attachments and warm, affectionate parent-child relationships have been found to be associated with a high-investment style of parenting characterized by later sexual maturation, stable pair bonding, and warm, reciprocally rewarding, non-exploitative interpersonal relationships.[14] The physiological basis of pair bonding involves specific brain regions underlying the ability to take pleasure in close, intimate relationships.[15] People who are high on this system are able to find intimate relationships psychologically rewarding and pleasurable and therefore seek them out, while psychopaths are prone to cold and callous personal relationships.

If indeed the main evolutionary impetus for the development of the human Love/Nurturance system is the need for high-investment parenting, females are expected to have a greater elaboration of mechanisms related to parental investment than males. The evolutionary theory of sex implies that females are expected to be highly discriminating maters compared to males and more committed to long-term relationships of nurturance and affection; cues of nurturance and love in males are expected to be highly valued by females seeking paternal investment. In agreement with this theory, there are robust sex differences (higher in females) on the Love/Nurturance dimension.[16]

And because empathy is strongly linked to Love/Nurturance, this also implies that women will be more prone to being motivated by empathy for the suffering of others and pathological forms of altruism. In turn, this has important ramifications in the contemporary world saturated with images of suffering refugees, immigrants, and other non-Whites. Love/Nurturance involves the tendency to provide aid for those needing help, including children and people who are ill.[17] This trait is strongly associated with measures of femininity as well as with warm, empathic personal relationships and psychological dependence on others.

People who are low on Love/Nurturance are prone to psychopathic personality—exploitative interpersonal relationships, lack of warmth, love, and empathy, an inability to form long term pair bonds and close, confiding relationships, and lack of guilt or remorse for violating others’ rights. The finding that males in the general population are three times as likely as females to be categorized with Antisocial Personality Disorder[18] fits with the robust sex differences in this system. Psychopathic personality, which is characterized by lack of empathy and social bonds, is associated with having many sexual partners, an uncommitted approach to mating, sexual coercion,[19] many short-term sexual relationships, sexual promiscuity,[20] and lack of nurturance of children.[21]

In terms of race differences, the Love/Nurturance system is a central aspect of a slow life history strategy,[22] with the result that it is expected that African and African-derived populations will be less prone to affectionate pair bonding and paternal investment in children, and more prone to short-term sexual relationships. Indeed, while African mothers are sensitive and responsive to babies’ needs, mother-child interactions in prototypical African cultures are devoid of the warmth and affection that are typical in European cultures.[23] Thus Mary Ainsworth, a pioneer in mother-infant attachment research, found that Ugandan babies were quite securely attached despite the fact that their mothers rarely showed any affection toward them—a phenomenon also noted by other researchers for a different African group.[24]

Prefrontal Executive Control (PEC). Having a reputation as conscientious and dependable is important for being accepted in a moral community. A relatively recent trend in evolution, especially in the Primate line, has been the evolution of a centralized control system able to integrate and coordinate lower-level adaptations. This top-down Prefrontal Executive Control (PEC) system enables coordination of specialized adaptations, including all of the mechanisms associated with the BAS.[25] PEC involves explicit processing of linguistic and symbolic information and the top-down control of behavior. Unlike the automatic processing typical of the BAS, it is able to evaluate complex contexts in order to generate behavior that is adaptive in contemporary human societies with their constantly changing, highly complex environments and reward-punishment contingencies.

For example, emotional states resulting from adaptations designed to react to evolutionary regularities may place people in a prepotently aggressive state energized by anger—an emotional state that is one of the subsystems of the BAS. However, whether or not aggression actually occurs may also be influenced, at least for people with sufficient levels of PEC, by explicit evaluation of the wider context, including evaluation of the possible costs and benefits of an aggressive act (e.g., penalties at law, possible retaliation). These explicitly calculated costs and benefits are not recurrent over evolutionary time but are products of explicit processing evaluating current environments and producing mental models of possible consequences of behavior.

Individual differences in PEC are most closely associated with the personality trait of Conscientiousness.[26] Conscientiousness involves variation in the ability to defer gratification and pleasure (both related to the BAS) in the service of attaining long-term goals, persevering in unpleasant tasks, paying close attention to detail, and behaving in a responsible, dependable, cooperative manner. Not surprisingly, Conscientiousness is also associated with academic success;[27] indeed, higher Conscientiousness is likely the reason for the finding of sex differences favoring females throughout the school years, including college.

Conscientiousness refers to “socially prescribed impulse control that facilitates task and goal-directed behavior”[28] and is thus central to understanding under-controlled behaviors associated with psychopathic personality.[29] Specifically, variation in PEC is central to understanding the difference between controlled and uncontrolled aggression—i.e., the difference between an impulsive act of aggression carried out in anger because of an insult versus a well-planned attack of revenge carried out in cold blood. Variation in PEC is also central to controlling reward-oriented behavior (pleasure-seeking), another central component of the BAS.[30] Individuals with low levels of prefrontal control are prone to impulsivity, substance abuse, and have low levels of emotional control, including relative inability to control anger, a prime motivator of some types of aggression.

Richard Lynn’s Race Differences in PersonalityWhites as More Generous and Empathic than Other Races

Richard Lynn’s Race Differences in Personality provides a welcome review of the personality literature related to race differences that fits well with the material on personality discussed above.[31] Studies from the United States have consistently found a rank ordering of races on behaviors related to psychopathic personality—highest in Blacks and Native Americans, followed by Hispanics, lower among Whites, and lowest among Asians, especially northeast Asians. The variables studied included conduct disorder, direct measures of psychopathic personality, measures of sexual promiscuity (indicating less proneness to pair bonding and being high on the BAS), Conscientiousness (Blacks vs. Whites only), criminality, school suspensions, emotional intelligence (Blacks vs. Whites only), drug and substance abuse, child abuse, and self-esteem (linked to the BAS: individuals high on the BAS are prone to high self-esteem and self-confidence.) In general, as with IQ, race differences are greatest between Whites and Blacks and much attenuated between Whites and northeast Asians.

Given the data on European individualism and its effects on mating patterns (highlighting the importance of love and pair bonding in choice of marriage partner compared to more kinship-oriented societies), I suggest that the differences between northeast Asians and Whites are best explained mainly by differences in Prefrontal Executive Control. The results for Blacks clearly indicate higher levels of the BAS, lower on Love/Nurturance, and lower on PEC.

Indeed, since the uniqueness of Western individualism is central to the present analysis, it’s important to note that Whites are more generous than Asians in terms of charitable donations, thus departing from the usual rank ordering of races on IQ and PEC. This is important because, as indicated above, the Love/Nurturance system is linked to altruism and empathic concern; moreover, Love/Nurturance has been of special importance for the West because of two particular aspects of individualism:

  • Individual choice of marriage Love Nurturance is an important criterion for both sexes but especially for men seeking a monogamous marriage with a woman high on a trait linked to nurturance of children and sexual fidelity. On the other hand, marriage in collectivist cultures is more determined by customs of marrying relatives as well by family strategizing, with parents playing a determining role.
  • Reputation in a moral community. Reputation in a group of non-relatives depends partly on being seen as generous, cooperative, and unselfish. Being high on the Love/Nurturancesystem is linked with empathy for the suffering of others. Moreover, among individualists, because of the lack of strong group boundaries and because reputation within a moral community is so critical, empathy would be expected to be directed to others outside one’s own kinship group but within one’s moral community.

Congruent with this scenario, Lynn presents data showing that Whites are more willing to contribute charitable donations than all other groups, including Asians.[32]And again, I emphasize that this is especially noteworthy given that it departs from the usual rank ordering of racial groups based on life history differences. Empathy for suffering others was a striking aspect of the movements to abolish slavery in England and the United States (Chapters 6 and 7) and in the eighteenth-century “affective revolution” that fed into the sensibility on display in the Second British Empire (Chapter 7). Ultimately, this was an ethnic shift that brought to the fore the hunter-gatherer sensibility with its greater emphasis on egalitarianism and moral communities.

Finally, it was noted above that women are higher on Love/Nurturance and its emotion of empathy. As a result, it is not surprising that Lynn finds women are more generous than men; indeed, White women are the most generous group of all, a finding that makes sense in light of the above comments on White women being more susceptible to appeals from suffering non-Whites, refugees, immigrants, etc. 

Life History Theory

Nicholas Baumard has proposed a life history theory-based account of the fact that Britain was the first to develop the industrial revolution.[33] He points out that pre-industrial Britain was relatively wealthy compared to any other area of the world, including other parts of Europe. Although he does not attempt to explain why Britain was wealthy prior to the Industrial Revolution—usually dated as beginning around 1760, he recruits life history theory to propose that this increased wealth had a cascading effect on a number of psychological traits, including a tendency to have a longer time horizon (less time discounting), higher optimism, and higher levels of trust in others, all of which are proposed as paving the way for innovation.

The basic idea is that in a stable resource-rich environment, people are optimistic and plan for the future rather than behave impulsively; since the struggle for subsistence is less salient, they are nicer to others and are less concerned with material goods. For example, he cites a study comparing Native American children with non-Native American children before and after a casino opened on tribal land. After the Native Americans received casino payments, there were reductions in criminal behavior, drug use, and behavioral disorders associated with poverty such as depression, anxiety, and oppositional disorders, as well as increases in the personality traits of Love/Nurturance and Conscientiousness described above.[34] In a similar manner, Baumard proposes that increased wealth in Britain led to an increase in these traits and that these in turn led to a flowering of innovation and technological progress.

Baumard’s theory contrasts with Gregory Clark’s theory in A Farewell to Alms which proposes natural selection for bourgeois virtues like Conscientiousness beginning in the early modern period.[35] While Baumard explicitly adopts a blank slate perspective, Clark’s theory is compatible with pre-existing genetically based variation in traits like Conscientiousness and IQ. More intelligent, conscientious people were able to rise in the new environment of the early modern period—an environment that unleashed the economic potential of individualism—and had more children, constituting natural selection for these traits.

Another theory based on selection has been proposed by Peter Frost and Henry Harpending based on the finding that penalties against violence increased dramatically beginning in the eleventh century, with up to two percent of males in each generation being subjected to capital punishment or dying in other ways related to their crimes.[36] This culling of violent males would have reduced the numbers of males at the high end of aggression and at the low ends of Conscientiousness and Love/Nurturance.

I regard all three of these proposals as contributing factors in European modernization; however, by itself or in combination they are inadequate. Baumard’s blank slate proposal ignores the massive data on genetic variation in personality traits and intelligence. Frost and Harpending’s thesis would not explain why strong states in areas like China and Eastern and Southern Europe would not have had similar selective effects on these traits, so they cannot explain the uniqueness of northwestern Europe—its individualism, the vastly disproportionate number of discoveries and inventions, and its exploring and colonizing the planet. China’s penalties for serious crimes were particularly draconian, punishing entire families of the alleged perpetrator beginning at least by the fourth century B.C. and extending to the early twentieth century.[37]

Moreover, none of these theories discuss individualism as a necessary condition for European modernization, including the Industrial Revolution. As presented in Chapter 4, northwest Europe had a long history of individualist family structure long before the Industrial Revolution—indeed, its origins are lost in prehistory and I argue they are ethnically based. However, the creativity, innovation, and enterprise that would be the natural product of the individualism of northwestern European peoples was throttled by a non-meritocratic aristocratic social system until the English Civil War of the mid-seventeenth century and the gradual overthrow of aristocratic culture (Chapter 6).

As noted in Chapter 4, the individualist family pattern required greater planning and self-control (Conscientiousness) prior to marriage and resulted in a greater likelihood to exhibit what psychologists label “internal locus of control” (i.e., the degree to which people believe that they have control over the outcome of events in their lives, as opposed to a fatalistic perspective resulting from external forces beyond their control.) It’s no accident that the English word kismet has Arabic roots.

Individualist marriage also emphasized individual choice of marriage partner based on the personal characteristics of the spouse, including intelligence, Conscientiousness, and affection (Love/Nurturance). These traits are deemphasized when marriage is embedded within extended kinship networks where marriage is typically entered into with relatives and often determined by parental choice. In individualist culture, reputation in a moral community rather than a kinship-based community was critical, resulting in trust of non-relatives.

The Protestant Reformation, which succeeded only in northwest Europe, is critical. In particular, the English Civil War of the 1640s, which saw the triumph of egalitarian individualism and the beginnings of the end of aristocratic culture based on agriculture, a rigid status hierarchy, and inherited (non-meritocratic) status with very limited opportunities for upward mobility. This upheaval ultimately resulted in relative egalitarianism, the development of a market-oriented economy, industrialization, and opportunities for upward mobility and reproductive success for the intelligent and conscientious, as described by Clark’s A Farewell to Alms.

Baumard supposes that increasing wealth in China and Japan (neither of which ever developed anything like European individualism) would have resulted in an industrial revolution. This is conjecture, and does not take account of greater levels of conformity and relative lack of creativity and innovation in these cultures, despite increased wealth and continuing into the present.[38] As discussed in Chapter 3, Westerners are WEIRD people differing in a large number of psychological characteristics from people in collectivist cultures. As with the data on the individualist family, these findings are compatible with an ethnic interpretation of northwestern European uniqueness.

Finally, given that there has always been an affluent class in Europe and in other societies, in order to be plausible, Baumard’s theory that increased affluence is critical must argue that this process is essentially the result of an increased number of people who are affluent. This is conjecture. My view is that the destruction of aristocratic culture, by allowing the inherent egalitarian individualism of northwest Europeans to come to the fore, was the critical factor.

Go to Part 4.


[1] Richard Lynn, Race Differences in Psychopathic Personality: An Evolutionary Perspective (Arlington, VA: Washington Summit Press, 2018).

[2] Robert Plomin, Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2018).

[3] Jeffrey A. Gray, The Psychology of Fear and Stress (2nd ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Jeffrey A. Gray, The Neuropsychology of Anxiety: An Enquiry into the Functions of the Septo-hippocampal System (2nd ed.) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

[4] Jaak Panksepp, Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998),191.

[5] Kevin MacDonald, “Temperament and Evolution,” in Marcel Zentner and Rebecca L. Shiner (Eds.), Handbook of Temperament (New York: Guilford Press, 2012b): 273–296.

[6] Gray, The Neuropsychology of Anxiety.

[7] The BAS can also be seen in children where it is linked to impulsivity (i.e., seeking rewards without adequate attention to costs), “High Intensity Pleasure,” and aggressiveness. Children who score high on behavioral approach are prone to positive emotional responses, including smiling, joy, and laughter available in rewarding situations and in the pleasant social interaction sought by sociable children.

Mary K. Rothbart and John E. Bates, “Temperament,” in Handbook of Child Psychology, William Damon, Richard Lerner, and Nancy Eisenberg (Eds.), Social, Emotional, and Personality Development (Vol. 3) (6th ed.) (New York: Wiley, 2006): 99–166.

[8] Peter J. LaFreniere, Emotional Development: An Evolutionary Perspective (Boston: Wadsworth/Thompson Learning, 2000).

[9] Nathan A. Fox, “Dynamic Cerebral Processes Underlying Emotion Regulation,” in Nathan Fox (eds.), The Development of Emotion Regulation: Biological and Behavioral Considerations. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 59, no. 2–3, Serial No. 240): 152–166.

[10] American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.) (Washington, DC: APA Press, 2013).

[11] Kevin MacDonald, Emily A., Patch, and Aurelio J. Figueredo, “Love, Trust, and Evolution: Nurturance/Love and Trust as Two Independent Attachment Systems Underlying Intimate Relationships,” Psychology 7, no. 2 (2016): 238–253.

[12] Paul D. Trapnell and Jerry S. Wiggins, “Extension of the Interpersonal Adjective Scales to Include the Big Five Dimensions of Personality,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 59 (1990): 781–790.

[13] MacDonald, “Love, Trust, and Evolution.”

[14] Jay Belsky, Laurence Steinberg, and Patricia Draper, “Childhood experience, interpersonal development, and reproductive strategy: An evolutionary theory of socialization,” Child Development 62 (1991): 647–670.

[15] Andreas Bartels and Semir Zeki, “The Neural Basis of Romantic Love,” NeuroReport 11, no. 17 (2000): 3829–3834.

[16] Trapnell and Wiggins, “Extension of the Interpersonal Adjective Scales to include the Big Five dimensions of personality.”

[17] Jerry S. Wiggins and Ross Broughton, “The Interpersonal Circle: A Structural Model for the Integration of Personality Research,” Perspectives in Personality 1 (1985): 1–47.

[18] American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 (Washington DC, 2012).

[19] Martin L. Lalumiere and Vernon L. Quinsey, “Sexual Deviance, Antisociality, Mating Effort, and the Use of Sexually Coercive Behaviors,” Personality and Individual Differences. 21 (1996): 33–48.

[20] Robert D. Hare, Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) (2nd ed.) (Toronto: Multi-Health Systems, Inc., 2003).

[21] Andrea L. Glenn and Adrian Raine, “Psychopathy and Instrumental Aggression: Evolutionary, Neurobiological, and Legal Perspectives,” International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 32 (2009): 253–258.

[22] Aurelio J. Figueredo et al. “The Psychometric Assessment of Human Life History Strategy: A Meta-analytic Construct Validation,” Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences 8, no. 3 (2014): 148–185.

[23] Kevin MacDonald, Emily Patch, and Aurelio José Figueredo, “Love, Trust, and Evolution: Nurturance/Love and Trust as Two Independent Attachment Systems Underlying Intimate Relationships,” Psychology 7, no. 2 (2016): 238–253.

[24] Mary D. S. Ainsworth, Infancy in Uganda (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967); Robert A. LeVine and Sarah E. LeVine, “Parental Strategies among the Gusii of Kenya,” in Robert A. LeVine, Patrice M. Miller, and Mary Maxwell West (eds.), Parental Behavior in Diverse Societies (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1988): 28–35.

[25] MacDonald, “Effortful Control, Explicit Processing, and the Regulation of Human Evolved Predispositions.”

[26] Ibid.

[27] Oliver P. John and Sanjay Srivastava, “The Big Five Trait Taxonomy: History, Measurement, and Theoretical Perspectives,” in Lawrence A. Pervin and Oliver P. John (Eds.), Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research, 2nd ed. (New York: Guilford Press: 102–138.

[28] Ibid., 121; italics in original

[29] Adrian Raine, “Psychophysiology and Antisocial Behavior: A Biosocial Perspective and a Prefrontal Dysfunction Hypothesis,” in Daniel M. Stoff, James Breiling, and Jack D. Maser (Eds.), Handbook of Antisocial Behavior (New York: Wiley, 1997): 289–304.

[30] MacDonald, “Effortful Control, Explicit Processing, and the Regulation of Human Evolved Predispositions.”

[31] Lynn, Race Differences in Personality.

[32] Lynn notes that Asians are more likely to be willing to donate organs after death than Whites (intermediate) or Blacks (lowest), a finding that fits the general pattern of race differences in IQ and many other traits. However, donations after death are not really costs to the donor and may be influenced by religious beliefs, whereas charitable contributions while living are real costs. As a result, I emphasize the latter. The argument here is that because of the evolution of individualism and consequent elaboration of mechanisms related to personal attractiveness in White populations, race differences in Love/Nurturance do not follow the general pattern, i.e., East Asians, Whites, Africans.

[33] Nicolas Baumard, “Psychological Origins of the Industrial Revolution,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 41 (September, 2018): 1–47.

[34] Randall Akee, Emelia Semeonova, E. Jane Costello, and William Copeland, “How Does Household Income Affect Child Personality Traits and Behaviors?, American Economic Review 108, no. 3 (2018): 775–827.

[35] Gregory Clark, A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009).

[36] Peter Frost and Henry Harpending, “Western Europe, Violence, and State Formation,” Evolutionary Psychology 13, no. 1 (January 2015): 230–243.

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/147470491501300114#articleCitationDownloadContainer

[37] Chi-Yu Cheng, “The Chinese Theory of Criminal Law,” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 39(4) (1948): 461-470; see also “Nine-Familial Exterminations,” Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_familial_exterminations

[38] C. Harry Hui and Harry Triandis, “Individualism-Collectivism: A Study of Cross-Cultural Researchers,” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 17, no.2 (1986): 225–248.

3 replies
  1. Ned J. Casper
    Ned J. Casper says:

    There seems to be some statistical overlap, rather than absolute differences. At a basic level biology creates culture, but there are interactions affecting educational and reproductive decision. See e.g. Nicolas Wade, “A Troublesome Inheritance” (2015), Steven Pinker, “The Better Angels of our Nature” (2012) & Edward Dutton, “Making Sense of Race” (2020) for a variety of approaches.
    Why do the Japanese seem different in 2021 than in 1941? Why was empathy for others even within the “moral communities” less obvious in medieval Europe than today? What of the critique of Christian altruism by e.g. Friedrich Nietzsche & John Hospers?

  2. JM
    JM says:

    Sorry, Off Topic:
    That appalling “Antisemite”, Van Morrison, lets it fly:

    Van Morrison – Western Man (Official Audio)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzJl5laUz30

    Van Morrison – They Own The Media (Official Audio)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3Zg023J-ok&reload=9&reload=9&app=desktop

    Van Morrison – Why Are You On Facebook? (Official Audio)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPn2zH_8OmY

    Van Morrison – Where Have All The Rebels Gone? (Official Audio)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfWl3ijpmrQ

    Van Morrison – Duper’s Delight (Official Audio)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fqRHtBi0Rs

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