I received an extremely thoughtful e-mail this morning, which made me realize that I ought to explain my assertions in The No Asshole Rule about men raised in the southern United States in a bit more detail. A woman working in Ohio (and a native West Virginian) wrote me the note below. I changed a word to avoid revealing the name of her company, deleted a sentence that provides too much identifying information, and deleted a subsequent bit of text that was on a different point. The rest is verbatim:
I really
enjoyed your book, The No Asshole Rule, but I have to take issue with one
theory you offered: that southern men tend toward asshole behavior more so than
others. As a feminist and a West Virginian, I’m here to tell you that I would
take 10 male bosses leaning toward redneck southern sensibilities to the one
effeminate jerk from Connecticut
that I had to suffer for six months. He would call me into his office, attack
me personally, all the while answering phone calls from his mother and assorted
friends while I sat there squirming to get out of his cologne-smelling presence.
Worse he had some skin disorder that caused the skin on his face to flake off
in huge scaly chunks, and he would pick at his face while giving me advice
about a personality disorder he detected in my behavior. And this Connecticut asshole spent a great deal of time telling us Cowtown Columbus, Ohio natives how to dress when we visited the sophisticated city of Hartford….. I don’t know what you’re
basing your theory on Mr. Sutton, but as a West Virginian living in Ohio.for 24 years, I’ve
worked with a lot of men from the south, and I honestly can’t agree with your
assessment. Now, don’t get me wrong, I do not for one minute believe all people
from Connecticut are as big an asshole as my Hartford boss, but given the
choice between a guy from Dallas and a guy from Hartford, I’m going to Dallas.
There is evidence to support this writer’s experience, but also an interesting twist about Southern men.
For starters, Southerners are probably more civilized in general — and less abusive as bosses — than other Americans. I first saw evidence that Southerner’s were generally more civilized when, in the 1980’s, I did research with the Southland Corporation about courtesy in 7/Eleven stores. My colleague Anat Rafaeli and I analyzed a national probability sample of 576 stores. We found (among other things) that stores in the southern United States were more likely to have clerks who offered greetings, established eye contact, smiled, and said "thanks" during customer service interactions than in other parts of the country (the worst courtesy levels were in 7/Eleven’s in the northeastern United States, and the western and midwestern stores were in the middle).
A recent national study of the frequency of abusive supervision (see my post if you want some details) provides more direct support for this pattern. This study of 534 workers by the Reed Group found that 44% of American workers reported working or having worked for an abusive boss. The regional differences were similar to our old 7/Eleven data. I quote “Southern workers (34%)
are less likely to have experience with an abusive boss than are their
Northeastern (56%) and Midwestern (48%) counterparts.”
BUT the twist, and the one I talk about in the book, is that although southerners (particularly southern men) are generally more polite than people from other parts of the country, when they feel as if their honor is affronted, they tend to react with considerably more anger and hostility than people raised in other parts of the country — because, as academics put it, they are from a "culture of honor." Here is the key excerpt from The No Asshole Rule:
Anthropological research shows that
these are cultures where men gain and sustain status by being known as someone
who “can’t be pushed around” and “who won’t take any shit.” American examples include the old “cowboy”
west and southern United States. . These were both once unruly and unstable places where law-enforcement
was largely absent, and where one’s wealth and social standing could easily be
wrestled away by others – and even though that has changed in many parts of the
west and south, the culture of honor persists to this day. People raised in these cultures are
especially polite and considerate in most interactions, in part, because they
want avoid threatening the honor of others (and the fight it provokes) – even
long after they have moved to another part of the country. Once they are affronted, men raised in these
places often feel obligated to lash back and protect what is theirs, especially
their right to be treated with respect or “honor.”
Some intriguing experiments
published the Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology by Dov Cohen and his colleagues show that, for men raised
in the southern United States,
the culture of honor continues to have measurable and strong effects, even
after they have moved to the northern United States. In this 1996 study at The University of
Michigan, subjects (half Southerners and half Northerners) passed a stooge who
“accidentally” bumped into him and called him an “asshole.” There were big differences between how the
northerners and southerners reacted: 65% of the northerners were amused by the
bump and insult and only 35% got angry; only 15% of the insulted southerners
were amused and 85% got angry. Not only
that, a second study showed that southerners had strong physiological reactions
to being bumped, especially substantial increases in cortisol (a hormone
associated with high levels of stress and anxiety), as well as some signs of
increased testosterone levels. Yet Northerners showed no signs of physiological
reaction to the bump and insult.
The lesson from these experiments,
plus a host of other studies, is that if you were raised as southerner – or
perhaps a cowboy – you will likely be more polite than your colleagues most of
the time, but if you run into an even mildly insulting asshole, you are prone
to lash-out and risk fueling a cycle of asshole poisoning.
To wrap it up, the best evidence and theory I know shows that West Virginian woman is right — Southerners are civilized day in and day out than others in the United States, BUT if you challenge or offend them, they are far more likely to construe what you do (including calling them an "asshole") as fighting words! And the same applies to the old west, hence my picture of John Wayne in the classic cowboy film Stagecoach — The Duke appears to be defending his honor!
Once again, I want to thank that thoughtful woman from West Virginian for her note. And I invite comments on this research, which I find quite fascinating.
P.S. The study by Dov Cohen and his colleagues also suggests another interesting twist — calling someone an asshole can sometimes transform a civilized person into a temporary asshole. And, of course, this research suggests that if call southerner or a cowboy an "asshole," you are especially asking for it! If you are really interested in the topic, check out Richard E. Nisbett and Dov Cohen’s book Culture of Honor: The Psychology of Violence in the South.
