If you are looking for some fun, and have a research grant to spend, try this. Visit an American university, bump into random students in the corridor and loudly call each one ‘asshole’. Then measure their reactions. This is what a team of psychologists did in a controlled experiment at the University of Michigan. The results were most interesting. Students from the southern part of the United States reacted far more violently and aggressively than those from the North, were shown to have much higher levels of cortisone and testosterone, and in tests regularly suggested more belligerent solutions to problems. America, it seems, remains culturally divided along the Mason–Dixon line, and the crucial difference now, as at the time of the American Civil War, is honour.
I just love pyschobabble crap like this. I’d love to see his actual data (backgrounds of subjects, how many subects, how the test was conducted and data measured, etc.)
I know Denny lived in the South as a kid so he may chime in, but having lived in both the South and the North my whole life (military family) I have to believe this is BS. Generalizing about an entire region as large and diverse as “the South” is about as valid as most racial generalizations.
And I love how he took a little data and then extrapolated an entire thesis out of it. :roll:
I have lived in the south and the north. I’m from the south originally but my father is from Boston. I’ve lived in Maine as well as here and TN. In the south I find people are much more cordial and inviting than in the north. Really ludacris study.
It seems to me that the appropriate male response to another man bumping into you, then calling you an asshole to your face, is to deck him. If they had tried this experiment at the local shopping mall the experiment would have been over in about 5 minutes after all the researchers were carted off in ambulances. Only in a neutered environment like the University of Michigan could you spend all day trying to start fights in a hallway without finding success.
I think the real question here isn’t why the Southerners were more aggressive, but rather how these college students are going to defend themselves once civilization collapses and we’re all living out of our bomb shelters, eating barbecued rat.
Heh, living here in Michigan I’d say that prof needs to run his experiments in more representave venues. Let’s say, run the same experiment in Detroit, MI and Jackson, MS and compare the results.
This is by no means the only study of this issue to reach the same sort of conclusions–however questionable the methodology of this one seems (they might just be measuring cultural sensitivity to the word ‘asshole’). They’re trying to explain things like why murder rates in southern states are so much higher.
First of all, how did they measure things like testosterone and cortisone in these folks while calling them “asshole”? Secondly, the article quoted makes a HUGE jump from the data to a conclusion that “honor” is a much bigger deal in the South, then rambles on to give anectdotal examples - none of which is supported by the data from the “study”.
Lastly - latest Department of Justice statistics show that violent crime rates are lower in the South than the national average. E.g., the violent crime rate in the Midwest is higher, and the region with the highest violent crime rate is the West (by a large margin.)
It didn’t say it measured testosterone as part of the “asshole” study.
Oh, and the Spectator is a British ‘winger rag, so it wouldn’t surprise me if this was a trial balloon on a new theory for the Civil War that softpedals slavery; the states’ rights and tariff ones just aren’t cutting it anymore.
Yeah, I was just picking on the article - actually, I’ve had a hard time finding the actual study it quoted anywhere.
I think that’s probably a reach as far as the article intent - I think the guy was just trying to create an article from nothing.
Interesting you should mention the Civil War - I’m a history buff, particularly military history, and I’m back in a Civil War phase right now (reading everything available, re-reading old, finding new, etc.) As you probably know, while slavery was a core issue, it certainly wasn’t as simple as “slavery is wrong, and if the south doesn’t give it up we’ll force them to militarily.” (but I hesitate to hijack this thread…)
Yeah, I was just picking on the article - actually, I’ve had a hard time finding the actual study it quoted anywhere.
I think that’s probably a reach as far as the article intent - I think the guy was just trying to create an article from nothing.
Interesting you should mention the Civil War - I’m a history buff, particularly military history, and I’m back in a Civil War phase right now (reading everything available, re-reading old, finding new, etc.) As you probably know, while slavery was a core issue, it certainly wasn’t as simple as “slavery is wrong, and if the south doesn’t give it up we’ll force them to militarily.” (but I hesitate to hijack this thread…)[/quote]
Oh, I know, but as late as 1970 black schoolkids in the south were learning about The War of Northern Aggression. :D
No slavery, no civil war. It may not have been sufficient, but it was the most necessary.
I’m just pointing out that the right has a history of disseminating new revisionist theories this way, so it wouldn’t surprise me. “Research shows…oh by the way, on this related point…”
