May 14  Francisco Gil-White, University of Pennsylvania Psychology
Does pastoralism result in cultures of honor?
    In Culture of Honor, Nisbett & Cohen (1996) argue that American southerners have a culture of honor but northeasterners don't. They trace this to the fact that the South of the US was settled by people of Scottish descent, who traditionally had a culture of honor, whereas the ancestors of northeasterners, dominated by the English, did not. They further explain that the Scots had a culture of honor because they were herders. The adapation of herding, they claim, promotes cultures of honor because the wealth of a herder can---literally---'run'. Thus, it is important to have a reputation as unreasonably violent (built by means of disproportionate reactions to small offenses) in order to deter those who would dare separate a herder from his wealth.
    The differences between northeasterners and southerners are well established by Nisbett & Cohen and that conclusion appears unimpeachable. However, the argument that herding leads to cultures of honor stands on less firm ground. I will present data from a case of herders in Western Mongolia that fails to meet the expectations of their theory despite the presence there of all the right variables that Nisbett & Cohen claim should produce a culture of honor. Wider cross-cultural analyses also appear to contradict the theory. In addition to presenting the data, I will give an account for why on theoretical grounds alone we might expect the herding theory of cultures of honor to fail.