Race and group behavior

My response to a post by Mats in Psychohistory-Historical Motivations:

Racial differences as far as the physical features are concerned are not imaginary, but to what extent they determine culture or group behavior or whatever Mats wanted to connect with them is not as clear as he assumes. Mats seems to believe that group identities, rivalries and affinities begin and end exclusively along ethnic fault lines. There are innumerable other fault lines, including parenting practices, which crisscross or overlap ethnic identities. Mats could have at least acknowledged the influence of parenting practices on group formation, which is a matter of utmost importance to psychohistorians.

Raising an assumption as a question may not make it any clearer. E.g.; ‘people are so fixated on skin colour – why?’; ‘most parents in the world get upset if their daughter brings home a Negro as her latest boyfriend – why?’. The problem here basically is the lack of evidence, which Jerry has already pointed out. Assuming that in the instance of a parent objecting to the daughter bringing home a Negro is solely because of the skin colour is unwarranted. Skin colour is only one of the many components of a complex matrix of group prejudices. What Mats says may be valid in the case of some ethnic sub groups, but not all.

A good example to illustrate this is that of the caste groups of South Asia, perhaps the most virulent bonding – differentiating social system ever known. There is definitely a sub-stratum of ethnic differences webbing through the castes but they are interwoven so thoroughly that the racial features of almost all the castes are blurred. Yet, the exclusiveness of the castes, the bond within castes and the tensions within and between castes were, perhaps, more intense than any among or between the races.

What bonds a caste and differentiates it from other castes is an extra-ethnic identity bundle each caste carries with it. Those identities are supposed to be two or more millennia old, but, except in the case of a few core caste groups such as the brahmins, they are actually only two or three centuries old. The caste ‘system’ as is known today is largely a colonial construct, almost an invention of the English colonisers of south Asia. The contours of even that are changing fast. To understand the bonding of a group and the tensions between groups, therefore, one may have to look beyond races.

In this context, I would like to bring to the notice of the List a recent article published in Science, 11 June 2010: Vol. 328. no. 5984, pp. 1408 – 1411, DOI: 10.1126/science.1189047, for responses.

This is the abstract:

The Neuropeptide Oxytocin Regulates Parochial Altruism in Intergroup Conflict Among Humans; Carsten K. W. De Dreu,1,* Lindred L. Greer,1 Michel J. J. Handgraaf,1 Shaul Shalvi,1Gerben A. Van Kleef,1 Matthijs Baas,1 Femke S. Ten Velden,1 Eric Van Dijk,2 Sander W. W. Feith3

Humans regulate intergroup conflict through parochial altruism; they self-sacrifice to contribute to in-group welfare and to aggress against competing out-groups. Parochial altruism has distinct survival functions, and the brain may have evolved to sustain and promote in- group cohesion and effectiveness and to ward off threatening out- groups. Here, we have linked oxytocin, a neuropeptide produced in the hypothalamus, to the regulation of intergroup conflict. In three experiments using double-blind placebo-controlled designs, male participants self-administered oxytocin or placebo and made decisions with financial consequences to themselves, their in-group, and a competing out-group. Results showed that oxytocin drives a "tend and defend" response in that it promoted in-group trust and cooperation, and defensive, but not offensive, aggression toward competing out- groups.

1 Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Roetersstraat 15, 1018 WB Amsterdam, Netherlands.
2 Department of Psychology, Leiden University, Postbox 9555, 2300 RB, Netherlands.
3 Stichting AllesKits, Cypruslaan 410, 3059 XA Rotterdam, Netherlands.

I may add, this need not diminish the importance of parenting practices in culture formation, or group behavior.

Link to abstract and full paper here (subscription needed for full paper):
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/328/5984/1408

Suzarin

The Hindu has egg on its face

The Hindu published the following news today, June 12, perhaps in a bid to please its newfound favourite – the BJP. The latest news from Bihar today is that Nitish Kumar has distanced himself from Narendra Modi. He has threatened to sue whoever that has brought out an advertisement showing Nitish Kumar and Narendra Modi holding each other’s raised hand. Did The Hindu go to town this time without cross checking Neena Vyas’ input? Has The Hindu gone overboard in its bid to forge a BJP-JD(U)-CPI(M) front?


Bihar no longer out of bounds to Modi

Neena Vyas

BJP will signal that it is not just a junior partner in Nitish enterprise

Patna conclave will target Congress also for RJD “misrule”

PATNA: The big show of strength planned by the Bharatiya Janata Party here on Sunday evening will carry a double message: it will mark the start of its all-out election campaign, and signal that the party is not just a “junior” partner in Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Bihar enterprise.

It may also turn out to be the ‘coming out in Bihar' party for Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who has so far been virtually kept out of the election campaign in the State in due deference to the alliance partner, the Janata Dal (United).

The other significant aim of the rally on the historic Gandhi maidan is to send out a clear message that the Congress was equally responsible for the disastrous years of the Rashtriya Janata Dal rule as it was a partner in the coalition government in the last five years before the RJD was swept away.

The BJP seems wary of the sudden upswing in Congress electoral fortunes in Uttar Pradesh on the back of a ‘swing' of Muslim and “upper caste” votes towards it, and hopes to prevent that here by blaming the party equally for the RJD “misrule.”

“The 15 years of RJD rule was propped up by the Congress. It was RJD plus Congress raj,” Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi said here on Friday, a day before the start of the BJP's two-day national executive committee meeting, which will end with the rally.

Development is the ‘mantra' the party has adopted and the speakers lined up for the public meetings have apparently been told not to stray from this line. Significantly, Mr. Narendra Modi has been chosen to showcase “development” in Bihar. “Party president Nitin Gadkari, senior leader L.K. Advani and Mr. Narendra Modi will certainly be key speakers at the rally,” Mr. Sushil Modi said. Mr. Kumar had never directly or indirectly interfered in the BJP's internal affairs and the two decades-old alliance was a “model” for coalition governments, he added.

A senior BJP leader said the Gujarat Chief Minister was the “most qualified” as he himself had shown the road to development in his State. Over the last couple of days full-page advertisements have appeared in some local newspapers here on the better status of Muslims in Gujarat than in some regions — the statistics were sourced to the Sachar Committee report.

There would be nothing exceptional in the decision to field Mr. Narendra Modi except that for some days now senior party leaders had hinted that the Gujarat Chief Minister would not be a speaker. For, “normally Chief Ministers of States, other than those where the party conclave takes place, do not address the public meetings.”

A party leader here said the BJP wanted to send out a message to the JD(U) that it was its own master and would take its own decisions. It wants to dispel the impression that in each election the BJP decides to keep Mr. Narendra Modi out of the Bihar campaign for fear of annoying the JD(U).

Mr. Narendra Modi is also to be fielded as the key speaker on the third resolution — on the alleged step-motherly treatment meted out to non-UPA States by the Manmohan Singh government — that the party conclave is expected to adopt.

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