Race Differences in Ethnocentrism

by Edward Dutton

  9. Conclusion

  In this chapter, we have examined the competing definitions of ethnocentrism and ethnicity and we have argued that the most persuasive and parsimonious definitions are those termed ‘sociobiological’. We have also engaged in a brief exploration of the proposed causes of ethnocentrism and similarly found that it is most reasonable to argue that the sociobiological model partly explains the development of ethnocentrism. In this chapter, we have noted a number of times that ‘Genetic Similarity Theory’ is compelling evidence for this model, because it shows that altruism is predicted by genetic similarity. We will now turn to more detailed evidence in favour of this theory.

  Chapter Five

  Evidence for Genetic Similarity Theory

  1. Introduction

  In this chapter, we will begin to survey more recent evidence for the sociobiological model of ethnocentrism and ethnicity. We will start by examining British-Canadian psychologist J. Philippe Rushton’s (1943–2012) ‘Genetic Similarity Theory’ (e.g. Rushton, 2005). We will demonstrate that there is a great deal of evidence in favour of this theory but that it does not fully explain all manifestations of ethnocentrism and, accordingly, it needs to be nuanced and carefully developed.

  2. Genetic Similarity Theory

  As we have discussed, the sociobiological model is predicated on the view that ethnic groups are extended families and that all animals will instinctively behave more pro-socially to those who share more of their genes. This inclination towards those who are genetically similar has been termed ‘Genetic Similarity Theory’ and a great deal of evidence for it was presented by J. Philippe Rushton. We will begin with a detailed summary of this.

  Rushton’s theory is grounded in the sociobiological model of ethnic nepotism. As we have already seen, Hamilton (1964) posited the notion of ‘inclusive fitness’. He argued that alleles which lead to altruism would usually not spread, because the altruistic individual would not survive. However, they would spread if they were directed specifically towards genetic kin and if the resulting boost to inclusive fitness exceeded the cost to individual fitness which would be borne by the altruist. This condition, for the evolution of altruism, is known as ‘Hamilton’s Rule’. As we have also seen, van den Berghe drew upon Hamilton’s ideas and argued that insofar as the ethny is a putative kinship group, shared ethnic identity should lead to some of the same altruistic behaviour associated with families. He argued that people would look for kinship markers — such as language or dress — and these would release altruistic behaviour. At the same time, animal altruism, even to the point of self-sacrifice, was being massively confirmed (Wilson, 1975). Rushton’s contribution was to argue that people could discern whether or not others were genetically similar to them, even in the complete absence of any kinship markers. Moreover, Rushton argued, this unconscious awareness of genetic similarity would be enough to release altruistic behaviour. This he called ‘Genetic Similarity Theory’ and it requires a more detailed explication.

  According to Rushton, kinship would have to be detectable and this could be through a number of methods including (1) proximity to self (2) familiarity through interaction (3) similarity to self — through imprinting of certain features (4) innate feature detectors allowing you to unconsciously discern similarity to self even in the absence of any mechanism to learn this. For the fourth mechanism to work, a gene would need to produce two effects: (a) a unique trait, such as a ‘green beard’ and (b) a preference for others who have that trait. This gene would be most effective if it made people the most interested in highly heritable traits. Some physical traits, it should be noted, are genetically influenced while others are more environmentally influenced.

  Rushton argued that there is a large body of evidence that animals do indeed have Innate Feature Detectors, due to behaviour that cannot possibly be explained by conditioning, something he presented in Rushton (2005), an article aimed at scholars of nationalism and published in the journal Nations and Nationalism. In this article, Rushton noted that in a classic study of bees, Greenberg (1979) bred for fourteen degrees of closeness to a guard bee, which blocks the nest to intruders. Only the more genetically similar intruders were allowed to enter the hive. Rushton observed that in another classic study of frog tadpoles separated before hatching and raised in isolation, it was found that the tadpoles moved to the end of the tank where their siblings had been placed, even though they had never encountered them before, rather than to the end of the tank with non-siblings (Blaustein & O’Hara, 1981). Squirrels, explained Rushton, produce litters that contain both full siblings and half-siblings. Even though they have the same mother, share the same womb, and inhabit the same nest, full siblings fight less often than do half-siblings. Full siblings also come to each other’s aid more often (Hauber & Sherman, 2001). Likewise, argued Rushton, the proposed feature would explain the ability of animals to mate assortatively, such that close kin are rejected. Even in species that disperse, the offspring typically show strong aversion to mating with close relatives. One study of wild baboons, discussed in Rushton (2005), showed that paternal kin recognition occurs as frequently as maternal kin recognition even though identifying paternal kin is much more difficult in a species where the mother mates with more than one male (Alberts, 1999).

  From 1984, Rushton and his colleagues began to apply this Hamilton-inspired approach to human samples (Rushton et al., 1984; Rushton, 1989, Rushton, 2004, Rushton & Bons, 2005). As discussed, they dubbed the approach ‘Genetic Similarity Theory’ and reasoned that if genes produced effects which allowed bearers to recognize each other, altruistic behaviour could evolve beyond merely near to actually very distant kin selection. People could maximise their inclusive fitness by marrying those who were genetically similar to themselves, making friends with those the most genetically similar to themselves, being friendlier to neighbours who were more genetically similar to themselves, and displaying ethnic and simply species nepotism. Rushton and his colleagues presented a large body of evidence to support these hypotheses.

  3. Social Assortment Studies

  Rushton showed that people assort — choose their friends and their partners — in ways that would be predicted by Genetic Similarity Theory. In that these people are not kin, such a finding proves that Genetic Similarity Theory moves us beyond kin and helps in explaining ethnic nepotism. Both spouses and best friends are most similar on socio-demographic variables such as age, ethnic background and education level, where the correlation was 0.6. With regard to opinions and attitudes, the correlation was 0.5, a noteworthy finding which repudiates the idea that people are simply friends with those with whom they have a lot in common. On cognitive ability the correlation was 0.4 and the weakest but still statistically significant correlation was on personality type and on physical traits, at 0.2 (Rushton, 2005). It should be noted that intelligence — with a heritability of about 0.8 (Lynn, 2011a) — is more heritable than personality, which has a heritability of 0.5–0.6 (Nettle, 2007). Also, interestingly, research from Hawaii, where there are many inter-racial marriages, found that inter-racial couples seemed to compensate for physical dissimilarity with psychological similarity, as they were more similar in personality than were those marrying within their racial group (Ahern et al., 1981). There is an upper limit on like marrying like, as those who are too similar risk giving their offspring double doses of harmful genetic mutations. As such, the ideal partner is one who is genetically relatively similar but not a close relative. We will later discuss a study from Iceland (Helgason et al., 2008) which would appear to confirm this as it indicates that the most successful marriages are between third cousins.

  Several studies have found that — within ethnic groups — people prefer those who are more similar to themselves and specifically more similar to themselves on more heritable traits. Rushton (2005) observes that for physical attributes, heritability is 80% for middle-finger length vs. 50% for upper-arm circumference; for intelligence, 8
0% for general intelligence vs. less than 50% for specific intelligence abilities; for personality items, 76% for ‘enjoying meeting people’ vs. 20% for ‘enjoying being unattached’; and for social attitudes, 51% for agreement with the ‘death penalty’ vs. 25% per cent for agreement with ‘Bible truth’. In a study of married couples, Russell et al. (1985) found that across 36 physical traits, spousal similarity was greater on attributes with higher heritability such as wrist circumference (71% heritable) than it was on attributes with lower heritability such as neck circumference (48% heritable). The same pattern was found with regard to attitudes and interests, while Rushton and Nicholson (1988) found that spouses were more similar on the more heritable aspects of intelligence than on the less heritable ones. When spouses assort on more heritable items, they report greater marital satisfaction (Russell & Wells, 1991).

  In a study of best friends, Rushton (1989b) found that across a wide range of physical and psychological measures, best friends were more similar than random co-ethnics and more similar on the more heritable traits. These results were extended to liking strangers by Tesser (1993) who manipulated people’s beliefs about how similar they were to others on attitudes pre-selected as being either high or low in heritability. Tesser found that people liked others more when their similarity had been chosen (by him) on the more heritable items.

  4. Twin and Adoption Studies

  Several twin and adoption studies show that the preference for genetic similarity is heritable, meaning that people are genetically programmed to prefer similar partners, but that there is individual variance in the extent to which they do so (reviewed in Rushton, 2005). Rowe and Osgood (1984) analysed data on delinquency from several hundred adolescent monozygotic (MZ) twin pairs, who share 100% of their genes, and dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs, who share 50% of their genes. They found that adolescents who were genetically inclined to delinquency were also genetically inclined to seek out other delinquents to be their friends. Daniels and Plomin (1985) examined friendships in several hundred pairs of siblings from both adoptive and non-adoptive homes. They found the friends of the biological siblings were genetically similar to each other. However, the friends of the adoptive siblings were only as similar as would be predicted by chance.

  Rushton and Bons (2005) analysed a 130-item questionnaire on personality and social attitudes gathered from several hundred pairs of identical twins, fraternal twins, their spouses and their best friends. They found that: (a) spouses and best friends are roughly as similar as siblings, (b) identical twins choose more similar spouses and best friends to their co-twin than do non-identical twins. They also found that the preference for genetic similarity is around 30% heritable. This is important because it implies significant individual and probably also population differences in the degree of preference for genetic similarity and thus in the degree of ethnocentrism. It also leaves considerable space for environmental variables — such as conflict — to impact individual and population levels of ethnocentrism. Once again, matching for similarity was greater on the more heritable items showing that social assortment is based on the underlying genotype. In his review, Rushton (1989a) notes that adoptions are more likely to be successful if the parents see themselves as similar to the child and child abuse is disproportionately likely to be at the hands of a step-parent than a biological parent. These findings are in line with Genetic Similarity Theory.

  5. Blood Tests, Bereavement, Scent and Faces

  Rushton (1988) tested genetic similarity in relation to blood antigens. He analysed seven polymorphic marker systems at ten blood loci across six chromosomes (ABO, Rhesus [Rh], MNSs, Kell, Duffy [Fy], Kidd [Jk] and HLA) in a study of 1,000 cases of disputed paternity, limited to people of North European appearance (judged by photographs). Couples who produced a child together were 52% similar but those that had not were only 43% similar. Rushton (1989b) used these blood tests with pairs of male best friends of similar background and found that the friends were significantly more similar to each other than they were to randomly matched pairs from the same database. He noted that in Britain, blood type A is found to occur more frequently in SES 1, the highest socioeconomic group (57% of the time), than in SES 5, the lowest socioeconomic group (41% of the time). However, to eliminate this ‘stratification’ possibility, Rushton (1989a) calculated within-pair differences in age, education, and occupation. He did not find them to be significantly correlated with friends’ blood similarity scores which they should have been if the stratification hypothesis was correct.

  Within-family bereavement studies show that Genetic Similarity Theory operates even within the same small family. A study of 263 child bereavements found that (1) spouses agreed 74% of the time on which side of the family a child resembled the most, and (2) the grief intensity reported by mothers, fathers and grandparents was greater for children who resembled their side of the family than it was for children who resembled the other side of the family (Littlefield & Rushton, 1986). A study of bereavement in twins found that MZ twins, when compared to DZ twins (a) work harder in the interests of their co-twin; (b) show greater physical proximity to their co-twin; (c) are more affectionate towards their co-twin; and (d) show more intense grief when their co-twin dies (Segal, 2000).

  It has been shown that women prefer the bodily scents of men who are more genetically similar to them than they do the scents of men who are less genetically similar to them. They also prefer this ‘similar’ scent to a scent which is almost exactly the same as their own (Jacob et al., 2002). Each woman’s choice was based on the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) gene sequence — the basis for personal odour and smell preferences. This is inherited from the woman’s father but not her mother. Penton-Voak et al. (1999) found that both men and women rated versions of their own face as the most attractive after they had been morphed into faces of the opposite-sex, even though they did not recognise the photos as images of themselves. DeBruine (2002) found that people whose faces were morphed onto the faces of strangers rated the ones who looked more like themselves as more trustworthy.

  6. Genetic Similarity, Race and Race Proxies

  A number of studies have shown that, in line with Genetic Similarity Theory, people will behave in a more pro-social way to members of their own ethnic group. One study examined street beggars in Moscow. Some were ethnic Russians, just like the vast majority of the pedestrians. Others were dressed in the distinctive costume associated with Moldova, where people speak Romanian. Also, some beggars were dressed as dark-skinned Roma.18 The Russian pedestrians preferred to give money to their fellow Russians, then their fellow Eastern European Moldovans and finally to the Roma. This was despite the fact that the Roma went beyond mere begging to more persuasive tactics such as singing and dancing, importuning people, and sending out groups of children to beg (see Salter, 2007). Irwin (1987) tested Rushton’s theory through an anthropological study of Inuit tribes in Northern Canada. He calculated coefficients of consanguinity within and between these various tribes. He found that pro-social behaviour, such as wife exchange, and anti-social behaviour, such as the genocidal murder of women and children from another tribe during warfare, paralleled the degree of genetic distance in the expected direction.

  Even very young children typically show a clear preference for others of their own ethnic group (Aboud, 1988). In fact, the process of making racial groupings has been shown to result from a natural tendency to classify people into ‘kinds’. Children quickly begin to sort people into ‘basic kinds’ by sex, age, size and occupation. Experiments show that at an early age children clearly expect race to run in families (Hirschfield, 1996). Very early in life, a child knows which race it belongs to, and which ones it doesn’t.

  Finally, Rushton argued that many cleavages — such as social class, religion or political ideology — can ultimately be explained in terms of Genetic Similarity Theory. Indeed, he argued that people will tend to adopt the ideological or religious perspective which is the most likely to perpetu
ate their genes. In terms of proxies for genetic similarity, DNA sequencing of the ancient Hindu caste system has confirmed that higher castes are more genetically related to Europeans than are lower castes, these being genetically more related to other South Asians (Bamshad et al., 2001). Although outlawed in 1960, the caste system continues to be the main feature of Indian society, with powerful political repercussions. People can be predicted to adopt ideologies, argued Rushton, that work in their genetic self-interest. Examples of ideologies that have been shown, on analysis, to increase genetic fitness are religious beliefs that regulate dietary habits, sexual practices, marital customs, infant care and child rearing (see Lumsden & Wilson, 1981). Rushton (2005) noted that Amerindian tribes that cooked maize with alkali had higher population densities and more complex social organizations than tribes that did not, partly because alkali releases the most nutritious parts of the cereal, enabling more people to grow to reproductive maturity. The Amerindians did not know the biochemical reasons for the benefits of alkali cooking but their cultural beliefs had evolved for good reason, enabling them to replicate their genes more effectively than would otherwise have been the case.

  The political pull of ethnic identity and genetic similarity also explains voting behaviour, Rushton (2005) argued. The re-election victory of George W. Bush in the 2004 US presidential election was largely attributed to white votes and to the higher value placed by these voters on ‘values’ than on the economy. A closer look at the demographics reveals that ‘values’ may be, at least in part, a proxy for ethnic identity and genetic similarity. The majority of white Americans voted based on which candidate — and candidate’s family — they believed most appeared to look, speak and act like them (Brownstein & Rainey, 2004).