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