Southern states of the U.S. have higher violent crime rates than the rest
of the country (1). Moreover, Southern men may be more willing to stand up
for themselves using physical aggression - particularly if they have been
insulted, or believe their homes are threatened. This phenomenon is
referred to as a "culture of honor."

Psychologists Richard Nisbett and Dov Cohen (1) proposed an intriguing
explanation in terms of subsistence problems experienced by the original
settlers (many from Ireland and Scotland): "We believe that the Southern
culture of honor derives from the herding economy brought to the region by
the earliest settlers and practiced by them for many decades thereafter."
This theory was inspired by anthropological evidence that herders around
the world are quite willing to put their lives on the line to protect their
herds against wild animals and thieves.

Lacking the protection of a well-established central government 18th-
Century Southern settlers were vulnerable to livestock thefts and had to be
prepared to protect their property using violence if necessary, according
to Nisbett and others. Hence the tendency to cultivate a reputation for
manly toughness that served to discourage rustlers. But why would these
notions apply today when there is much stronger rule of law, no cattle
raiding, and a highly urbanized population?

Nisbett and colleagues collected a variety of evidence that appeared to
back up their theory that the type of agriculture practiced, specifically
herding as opposed to farming, promoted a culture of honor leading to
violent crime (1).

The problem is that when some of their key evidence was carefully re-
evaluated, a very different conclusion was reached (2). Rebecca Chu and
others investigated the white non-Hispanic male homicide rates in rural
counties in the South as a function of the type of agriculture practiced.
They evaluated the prediction that homicide rates would be higher in
counties that were arid and hilly and thus more suitable for herding than
farming (and therefore conducive to a culture of honor). They concluded:
"Although we analyze similar data and address the same conceptual issues,
we find no support for the Nisbett-Reaves hypothesis. Overall, white male
homicides in rural counties in the South do not vary as predicted by
Nisbett's theory. Moreover, for some estimates of white male homicide
rates, when county homicides are adjusted for differences in white poverty,
the patterns are directly opposite to the Nisbett-Reaves predictions" (2,
p. 972).

The very different conclusions of the two teams of researchers boil down to
a mundane statistical technicality about how to deal with the very small
number of homicides in some rural counties but the reanalysis is clearly
correct.

The tragedy of science, according to Aldous Huxley is when a beautiful
theory gets killed off by an ugly fact. Fans of the herding culture of
honor theory have either ignored the contradictory evidence or pointed to
evidence that Southern whites still have higher violent crime rates than
northern whites - even if they move north (3). Oddly, this violent streak
skips women and urban residents (4).

So where does that leave us? First, the herding explanation for violent
tendencies of Southern white men was clearly falsified in relation to
homicides. Second, the higher levels of homicide by whites in rural
counties of the South can be fully explained in terms of poverty.

Many social scientists believe that Southerners favor violence in matters
of honor but the evidence is patchy. Some of the key psychological evidence
was obtained for Southern students attending the University of Michigan, a
very atypical group. Politically, people in the South tend to reject gun
control, favor capital punishment, corporal punishment and the building of
a strong national defense. I suspect that these attitudes are connected to
childhood experiences, poverty, and religiosity, rather than a distant
herding ancestry among rowdy Gaels.

1. Nisbett, R. E., & Cohen, D. (1996). Culture of honor: The psychology of
violence in the South. Boulder, CO: Westview.
2. Chu, R., Rivera, C., & Loftin, C. (2000). Herding and homicide: An
examination of the Nisbett-Reaves hypothesis. Social Forces, 78, 971-987.
3. Lee, M. R. (2007). Revisiting the Southern culture of violence. The
Sociological Quarterly, 48, 253-275.
4. Berthelot, E. R., Blanchard, T. C., & Brown, T. C. (2008). Scots-Irish
women and the Southern culture of violence. Southern Rural Sociology, 23,
157-170.