Race Differences in Ethnocentrism

by Edward Dutton

  In understanding Jewish marriage patterns, it might be argued that, historically, Jews are effectively of Middle Eastern origin. As such, we would expect that a propensity towards consanguineous marriage would anyway be relatively high among them, making them both positively and negatively ethnocentric when confronted with non-Jews. Their persecution at the hands of non-Jews would further strongly select in favour of ethnocentrism because many non-ethnocentrics would defect and ethnocentrism is the most successful group strategy in these circumstances. This process would render the Jews, relative to other ethnic groups, even more ethnocentric. With a small pool of potential marriage partners to choose from, relatively high levels of consanguineous marriage would be the result of these circumstances and this could be expected to further boost ethnocentric behaviour among the Jewish minority under harsh conditions of pre-Industrial Natural Selection. In these circumstances, the defective dimensions of inbreeding would likely be selected out while the positive ones would be retained. Small founding populations of already relatively ethnocentric Ashkenazi would have moved into Europe in around the year 1400. As the Jewish population was both genetically homogeneous and possibly evolved to ethnocentrism, it became especially ethnocentric when confronted with a hostile host population who also intermittently persecuted it. Due to cultural endogamy and this environment, its levels of cousin marriage become relatively high, further boosting its levels of ethnocentric behaviour as the population became increasingly internally genetically similar when compared to outsiders.

  An alternative argument has been presented by Cochran et al. (2006). They maintain that the Jewish disease profile is a function of Natural Selection because when a person has a recessive form of the mutant gene — when they are a carrier — their intelligence is boosted. According to their model, a short-term natural-selection event — due to a sudden change such as the arrival of the Jews in Europe — increases heterozygote fitness but there is a cost in terms of homozygote fitness. An example is the way that having one copy of a gene provides resistance to malaria while having two causes sickle cell anaemia. In pre-modern times, those with two copies would die young and only the benefits would be reaped. Intelligence, they argue, would have been very strongly selected for among Ashkenazi Jews because they were forced into cognitively demanding professions, such as banking, and fertility was positively associated with economic success in the pre-industrial world (see Clark, 2007). This explains why Jewish linguistic and mathematical intelligence is very high but their spatial intelligence — not being so significant in this context — is actually lower than the European average. (Europeans would have been mainly farmers, using tools.) Moreover, the influence of these genetic disorders among the Ashkenazi is too severe to be a matter of chance, the authors argue. In addition, they dispute the argument that the Jews have a small gene pool, so their work would imply that high Jewish ethnocentrism has been group selected for due to their being a persecuted and isolated population.

  Direct evidence of Jewish ethnocentrism (in comparison to that of Germans) can be seen in the behaviour of babies, such behaviour being very likely to be strongly genetic in origin. Developmental psychologists have found unusually intense fear reactions among Israeli infants in response to strangers, while the opposite pattern is found for infants from North Germany. The Israeli infants were much more likely to become ‘inconsolably upset’ in reaction to strangers, whereas the North German infants had relatively minor reactions to strangers. The Israeli babies therefore tended to have an unusual degree of stranger anxiety, while the North German babies were the opposite — findings that fit with the hypothesis that Jews are more (negatively) ethnocentric than Europeans (Sagi et al., 1985).

  However, there is an important way in which the causes of Jewish ethnocentrism diverge from those of Arab ethnocentrism. Data from the MIDUS study of middle-aged Americans shows that among white Europeans there is a significant positive correlation between how religious they are and how group-oriented they are, an association that also exists in the Jewish sample. However, the Jews were the most ethnocentric (or group-oriented) religious group despite being the least religious and they maintained this status when factors such as religiousness and intelligence were controlled for (see Dunkel & Dutton, 2016). A plausible explanation is that their high levels of ethnocentrism are a function of their small gene pool or, if this is incorrect, their isolation and persecution has selected for ethnocentrism. It may be that the experience of the Holocaust boosted Jewish ethnocentrism, but Jewish ethnocentrism was criticized long before this happened (see Lynn, 2011b).

  9. Low Ethnocentrism: Europeans and Africans

  The above discussion implies that Europeans — focusing solely on a genetic explanation — are likely to occupy a kind of ‘Goldilocks Zone’ of very low ethnocentrism. They are less ethnocentric than the Northeast Asians because they are less K-selected, they have a larger gene-pool, and their environment has been less harsh, leading to lower levels of group selection. However, they are also less ethnocentric than groups which are relatively more r-selected than them, such as Arabs. This is because at a certain point along the r–K continuum it would appear that a propensity towards cousin marriage is group selected for. This factor sets off high levels of positive ethnocentrism alongside the high levels of negative ethnocentrism which we can already expect to exist and the more ethnocentric groups then win the battle of group or natural selection. In much the same way, the less K-environment of Arabs means that they are more religious than Europeans. As we have discussed, religiousness can be understood to parallel and even exaggerate ethnocentrism and Europeans are clearly less religious than those from Arab countries (see Dutton, 2014).

  Further, Life History theory would predict that Sub-Saharan Africans would also be relatively high in negative ethnocentrism compared to Europeans. Certainly, Judd et al. (1995) review four studies which all find that African American youths are more negatively ethnocentric than white youths, consistent with a Life History model. From Dutton et al.’s research (2016), Sub-Saharan Africans do not differ significantly in ethnocentrism from Europeans, so this needs to be investigated further with a larger sample. Part of the reason for this may be low levels national identity in tribally Balkanized African countries. However, Africans are clearly less ethnocentric than South Asians. As we have discussed, one possible reason for this is their relatively fast Life History. This would mean that they would engage in cousin marriage to a lesser extent and benefit more from exogamous relationships, leading to greater genetic diversity between individuals and between tribal organizations.

  The consequent low level of societal development might also lead to a lower level of selection for a religious ideology based around an all-knowing, moral God of the kind that you find in Islam. This kind of god, it has been argued, be more useful in societies that developed more complex social structures in which non-relatives had to cooperate (see Norenzayan & Shariff, 2008). They were more likely to cooperate if they felt that a moral god was watching them, demanding they cooperate with co-religionists. Such a god might strongly promote marrying within the faith and rejecting deviants, providing a strong means of judging genetic similarity, as we have discussed. It would also promote positive ethnocentrism and negative ethnocentrism as being the will of God, providing an environmental way of promoting such behaviour as well as shunning or killing, and so damaging the breeding chances, of dissenters. Studies have indeed found that levels of religiousness are higher in South Asian and Arab countries than in African ones when average IQ is taken into account. South Asian and Arab countries are simply far more religious than their average national IQ would predict (see Lynn & Vanhanen, 2012, p. 305). So, these two factors may explain higher ethnocentrism among South Asians when compared to Africans. The South Asian environment is such that cousin marriage and a certain type of religion, involving a moral God, will be more strongly selected for, leading, in turn, to a group that is more ethnocentric
without any of the main disadvantages associated with either type of ethnocentrism.

  10. Selection for Low Ethnocentrism in Europeans?

  It could be argued that the low ethnocentrism of Europeans could, like a propensity for cousin marriage, be a group-selected trait. In other words, a European sub-population developed these traits and then came to dominate all of the other European populations, causing the traits to spread. Low ethnocentrism would permit a greater ability to trade and pool resources and so, ultimately, the creation of an extremely large coalition with a very large gene pool. This group would be more likely than a smaller group to produce geniuses. There is much research on the nature of genius but it is widely agreed that there is a specific ‘genius’ type. The genius is characterized by extremely high — outlier — intelligence and moderately high psychoticism; that is to say moderately low Agreeableness and moderately low Conscientiousness (Dutton & Charlton, 2015; Feist, 2007 & 1998; Simonton, 2009 & 1988). This is because original, ground-breaking ideas will always cause offence and involve thinking outside the box. Low Conscientiousness predicts breaking the rules while low Agreeableness predicts not caring if your ideas cause offence. Very high intelligence predicts the ability to solve extremely difficulty problems. This is an extremely rare combination because, at the group level, intelligence tends to be correlated with K strategy and thus high Agreeableness and Conscientiousness (Rushton, 1995). For this reason, genius will occur due to unlikely, but possible, combinations of genes and geniuses will usually be born to parents who are not themselves geniuses, though they may have relatively high intelligence. For this reason, a relatively large gene pool will be necessary in order to produce a significant number of geniuses, but they will also be more likely to occur in societies that have evolved relatively high intelligence (see Dutton et al., 2016a).

  According to Lynn and Vanhanen’s (2012) extensive research, there are consistent racial differences in average intelligence as would be approximately predicted by Cold Winters Theory. Harsh yet stable ecologies — such as Northeast Asia and Europe — have selected in favour of relatively high average intelligence. National IQ is placed at 100 among European countries, 105 in Northeast Asia, and below 100 among all other large racial groups. This kind of harsh ecology would necessitate planning, the ability to design and create effective shelters and clothes, future orientation, cooperation, impulse control, and the ability to solve complex problems quickly. These are all functions of high intelligence.

  However, the genius is not merely extremely intelligent. Precisely because he is anti-social, he is unafraid to challenge conventional thinking and is able to think in an unconventional way. In addition, as he is highly unconventional, he is not distracted from his quest to solve a particular problem by worldly distractions such as sex or, within reason, socioeconomic status. As such, the genius contributes at the ‘group level’ and a group that produces the optimum relatively low number of geniuses will be more successful than a group that is otherwise the same but produces fewer geniuses (Woodley & Figueredo, 2014). We can, it might be suggested, infer a relationship between low genius and ethnocentrism. There are two kinds of groups that will lack genius. Firstly, there is the group which is extremely K evolved, such as the Northeast Asians. This will have a very small gene pool and, hence, a lower level of genius than a group that is only slightly less K evolved and has slightly lower average intelligence but has a larger gene pool. And it has been shown elsewhere than Northeast Asians have lower levels of genius than Europeans based on per capita Nobel Prizes (e.g. Kura et al., 2015; Dutton et al, 2014); it has also been argued that this is precisely because they have a small gene pool, IQ bunched around the mean (itself likely a reflection of a small gene pool), and very low levels of psychoticism (Dutton & Charlton, 2015). Indeed, it has been shown that when national IQ is controlled for it is the more r-strategy countries who win the most Nobel Prizes (Van der Linden et al., 2018). But highly r-strategy countries win very few Nobel Prizes because they have low average intelligence and are simply too uncooperative.

  The ‘genius’ group evolutionary model will involve a trade-off between ‘genius’ and ‘ethnocentrism’. Groups with high levels of genius but low levels of ethnocentrism will triumph over groups with high levels of ethnocentrism but low levels of genius so long as certain conditions are met. Specifically, the effectiveness of the genius-driven innovation combined with the genius group’s (low but activated) level of ethnocentrism must be sufficient to triumph over the higher level of ethnocentrism present in the more ethnocentric group. As long as this is the case, the genius group will be able to win in situations of group conflict. However, this is less likely to be the case when the ethnocentrism of the genius group drops too low in comparison to that of the ethnocentric group.

  This model, which we might call the Genius-Ethnocentrism Trade-Off Model, would seem help to explain the available data implying low ethnocentrism among Europeans. This new model would imply that Northeast Asians are more ethnocentric than Europeans because, although they share a recent hunter-gatherer past, the conditions of extreme harshness to which Northeast Asians are evolved have also led to a very small gene pool and extremely low levels of psychoticism. This would be because, in general, an environment of extreme harshness would lead to a small gene pool because those who were not ideally adapted would not pass on their genes at all. In addition, there would be strong selection against any form of psychoticism and, anyway, the negative side of genius — uncooperative dreamers — would be even more intolerable in such an ecology than it would be in Europe. Northeast Asians are highly K evolved and highly intelligent — indeed, more so than Europeans — but their strategy is, by necessity, more ethnocentric than that of Europeans because of their limited capacity to produce genius. In addition, following Charlton, the extreme K-strategy of the Northeast Asians would also render them more ethnocentric as well.

  If we move further south, we see the second kind of group that will be unlikely to adopt a genius strategy. The strategy of Middle Easterners must also be more ethnocentric than that of Europeans. Their average intelligence is considerably lower, as is their general level of K, due to a relatively more unpredictable, though relatively more easy, ecology. This would lead to high levels of conflict. In this context, any sub-group that began to practice a system of kinship marriage would be at an advantage because it would increase the degree of ethnocentrism in that subgroup, as its members would all be strongly related. Indeed, this would allow that sub-group to begin to build a more complex society. This would eventually lead to large numbers of separate tribes which would be internally strongly genetically related, meaning lots of small gene pools. In addition, we would expect such a group to become strongly religious, which would also help it to build a complex society. However, this would simply make it more ethnocentric, reducing the gene pool by forbidding marrying out, and likely to suppress those with deviant thoughts. For this reason, and due to their lower average intelligence, they would produce low levels of genius compared to the Europeans. But they would also produce very high levels of ethnocentrism in relation to their specific tribe or subgroup and, sometimes, this would be enough to triumph over a group that adopts a genius strategy. Europeans would be in the middle of these two extremes and so able to adopt a genius strategy.

  11. The Fleeting Nature of Race Differences in Ethnocentrism

  It should, of course, be emphasised that these racial evolutionary strategies are not written in stone and have changed over time. Clearly, in the Medieval period, Europeans were far more ethnocentric than is now the case, something that is most obviously embodied in the Crusades. Indeed, kinship, and thus consanguineous marriage, was more significant in this period as well (MacDonald, 2004). Civilization was higher in the Medieval Middle East than was the case in Europe at the time and it may even be the case that, at the time, the average IQ of Europe was lower than it was in the Middle East, while levels of positive and negati
ve ethnocentrism were higher. Meisenberg (2007) has presented evidence that the collapse of the Roman Empire was partly caused by the development of contraception, and its use among the more intelligent, leading to declining IQ. Certainly, in the Medieval era, though cousin marriage was commonplace in Islam, girls were often married to the daughters of powerful neighbours or even outside the tribe in order to secure protection (Guthrie, 2013). Men might take a cousin as a first wife by non-relatives as further wives (Rosenthal, 2014). Some high-status males would maintain harems that had many non-Muslim members (Preston & Preston, 2010). Though we might expect the harsher ecology of northern Europe to produce a more K-strategy people than the Middle East, the collapse of civilization, in the form of the collapse of the Roman Empire, reflected civilization leading to declining IQ. Moreover, the wars this unleashed would have augmented this decline in K-strategy because it would have been those of the higher classes, who tend to be more K-strategist (Rushton, 1995), who would have primarily been sent off to war (Tobin, 2004, p. 82).

  Equally, few people in the Classical period remarked on the high intelligence of the Jews in comparison to Romans (see Lynn, 2011b). This was something which developed later. Indeed, it might be argued that, in the beginning, Islamic civilization could not possibly have practiced cousin marriage to any significant degree, as it was an expansionist civilization. It likely practiced something much more similar to the ‘genius’ model later adopted by Europeans, as evidenced in the high civilization inventiveness of Islamic civilization during the Medieval period. For whatever reason, Islamic civilization went backwards, reverting to a strategy of religiousness and cousin marriage. Meisenberg (2007) suggests that the up-take of contraception by the higher classes and consequent declining intelligence may have been the central issue. European civilization overtook it, moving away from cousin marriage and especially from religiousness. Medieval Europe was a kinship society, involving numerous social obligations. Even in the Early Modern period, the establishment of even distant kinship with somebody was of great significance (e.g. Anon, 1901, Ch. 9). But, over time, this became less and less important in Europe, as developing a larger and larger group of contacts, based around trade and innovation, became more and more successful. Europe adopted the simple household system where teenagers would be sent off to live with relative strangers (see MacDonald, 2004), so extending contact way beyond the kinship group. Kinship was not needed, to the extent that it once was, to create a functioning society. A relatively K-strategy, including high intelligence, permitted this and managed to outcompete remaining kinship societies.