7.5 Irrationality and culture

Sometimes our emotions guide us to act in ways that are, in some formal sense, irrational. But in a practical sense, are actually beneficial.

• The ultimatum game
• There is a social usefulness of irrationality, of being emotional.
  • A rational person is easily exploited because their response to provocations and assault will always be appropriate.
  • A person with a temper has an advantage: “mess with me and I will kill you”
  • If a person is too prone to provocation, you won’t deal with them at all.
• The importance of reputation depends on the culture
  • Sociologists describe “a culture of honor”:
    1. can’t rely on the law
    2. resources are easily taken, like herders
    3. reputation for excessive violent retaliation is essential to keep your resources.

  Some examples:

  Scottish highlanders

  Masai warriors

  Bedouin tribesmen

  Western cowboys

  American South

  • the culture of honor manifest itself in all sorts of psychological differences. Between individuals within such a culture and outside such a culture.
    • People who are raised within cultures of honor in the US have more permissive gun laws, corporal punishment and capital punishment, attitudes toward the military, more forgiving towards crimes of honor, higher rate of violence but in certain circumstances (like bar fights because of insults of one’s honor).
    • A study of honor as a psychological phenomenon (students from the south and north), greater levels of testosterone, cortisol, stress hormones, stronger handshake, more violent words when asked to fill in the blank.
  • Emotions are not noise in the system. They are complex motivational systems evolved to solve problems, sensitive to the culture. Exquisitely crafted to deal with these natural and social environments that we live in.