A total of 80 authors working in a variety of scientific disciplines commented on the theoretical model of CLimate, Aggression, and Self-control in Humans. The commentaries cover a wide range of issues, including the logic and assumptions of CLASH, the evidence in support of CLASH, and other possible causes of aggression and violence. Some commentaries also provide data relevant to CLASH. Here we clarify the logic and assumptions of CLASH and discusses its extensions and boundary conditions. We also offer suggestions (...) for future research. Regardless of whether none, some, or all of CLASH is found to be true, we hope it will stimulate future research on the link between climate and human behavior. Climate is one of the most presing issues of our time. (shrink)

Worldwide there are substantial differences within and between countries in aggression and violence. Although there are various exceptions, a general rule is that aggression and violence increase as one moves closer to the equator, which suggests the important role of climate differences. While this pattern is robust, theoretical explanations for these large differences in aggression and violence within countries and around the world are lacking. Most extant explanations focus on the influence of average temperature as a factor that triggers aggression, (...) or the notion that warm temperature allows for more social interaction situations in which aggression is likely to unfold. We propose a new model, CLimate, Aggression, and Self-control in Humans, that helps us to understand differences within and between countries in aggression and violence in terms of differences in climate. Lower temperatures, and especially larger degrees of seasonal variation in climate, call for individuals and groups to adopt a slower life history strategy, a greater focus on the future, and a stronger focus on self-control. The CLASH model further outlines that slow life strategy, future orientation, and strong self-control are important determinants of inhibiting aggression and violence. We also discuss how CLASH differs from other recently developed models that emphasize climate differences for understanding conflict. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and societal importance of climate in shaping individual and societal differences in aggression and violence. (shrink)

The evidence of culture’s impact on corruption and its consequences is still inconclusive despite several investigations: Sometimes, theory is lacking and causes and consequences seem exchangeable. Based on psychological research on the distribution and use of power, we predicted that a steeper distribution of power induces more corruption and elaborated its negative consequences in a complex causal model. For measuring power distribution, pervading national culture, we augmented Hofstede’s ‘Power Distance’ with three additional indicators into a reversed, more reliable and valid (...) culture composite called “Power Balanced Freedom”. Instead of the usual regression and instrument approaches, which cannot estimate multiple causal chains including causal feedback, a non-recursive path analysis was employed with data from 85 nations. PBF predicted less national Corruption, with positive effects on Gross Domestic Product and Inequality Adjusted Human Development. The often expected reverse effect of GDP on Corruption was not significant. Contrary to influential authors from economics, culture variables are the most important predictors of corruption and its consequences. Nonetheless, our extended model supports the main thrust of their ideas and adds more precision. Our conceptual distinction of the uses of power and our empirical measure PBF reflect Kant’s ethical imperative: freedom and autonomy for everyone. Widely shared life chances as measured by IHDI reflect utilitarian, consequentialist ideas. These different ethical approaches are connected in the confirmed causal model, in line with Rawls’ first and second principle of justice. (shrink)

We propose that grounded procedures may help explain psychological variations across cultures. Here we offer a set of novel predictions based on the interplay between the social and physical ecology, chronic sensorimotor experience, and cultural norms.

Many countries around the world embrace freedom and democracy as part of their political culture. However, culture is at least in part a human response to the ecological challenges that a society faces; hence, it should not be surprising that the degree to which societies regulate the level of individual freedom is related to environmental circumstances. Previous research suggests that levels of societal freedom across countries are systematically related to three types of ecological threats: prevalence of pathogens, climate challenges, and (...) natural disaster threat. Though their incidence overlaps, the literature has not yet provided a competitive test. Drawing upon the ecocultural framework, we tested five rival hypotheses, alternately focused on the above ecological factors and their interactions with economic wealth in explaining country variations in socio-political freedom. Focusing on data from 150 countries, we performed a series of linear mixed-effects regressions predicting freedom in the domains of politics, media, and economy. We found that countries with higher pathogen prevalence were more likely to suppress democracy and media freedom. Economic wealth, however, moderated the effect of pathogen prevalence on economic freedom, with the main effect being only found among wealthy countries, but not among poor countries. In contrast, natural disaster threat predicted political freedom and press freedom only among poor countries, consistent with the idea that disaster threat accompanied by poor resources promote socio-political freedom as a means of increasing collective survival. Throughout our analyses, we found no support for hypotheses based on climatic challenges. In addition, our multilevel approach revealed that country scores for socio-political freedom were highly clustered within world regions, accounting for substantial portions of variance. Overall, the present research offers a nuanced view of the interplay between ecology and wealth in the emergence of socio-political freedom. We discuss new directions in future research considering methodological and theoretical contributions of the present findings. (shrink)

Van Lange et al. argue that variations in climate explain cross-societal variations in violence. We suggest that any approach seeking to understand cross-cultural variation in human behavior via an ecological framework must consider a wider array of ecological variables, and we find that income inequality and sex ratio are better predictors than climate of cross-societal variations in violence.

In the world of social media, people are free to choose names based on their preferences, which may potentially reflect certain levels of uniqueness. In this study, we have attempted to explore the possibility of applying the ecological theory of individualism/collectivism in the context of social media. We, thus, examined provincial variations in the uniqueness of nicknames among more than 13 million Sina Weibo users. Initially, the nickname uniqueness indicator was set at the provincial level. It was found that the (...) uniqueness of nicknames was the highest in provinces with temperate climates, for example Guangdong, and the lowest in provinces with demanding climate, such as Ningxia. Regression analysis results partially supported that inhabitants in provinces with temperate climate were more likely to use unique nicknames on social media compared to those from harsh climate. This finding is significant in terms of ecology. (shrink)

Literature shows that psychological phenomena, including values, personality, and behaviors, are geographically clustered. The effects of temperature on interpersonal and intergroup aggression have been studied by many social psychologists. To date the interactions between temperature and other geographical factors have not been addressed. This study is aiming to examine the effects of thermal demands and the moderating effects of natural geographical factors on aggressive behavior at national level. Data for 156 societies was obtained from publicly available databases. Consistent with the (...) life-history theory, results of this study showed that aggressive behavior has a positive relationship with heat demands, and a negative relationship with cold demands. Aggressive behavior is also positively correlated with sunlight and altitude, and negatively correlated with coastline vicinity. Forest, coastline vicinity, and rainfall moderated the effect of thermal demands on aggressive behavior. In societies with more forests, with more rainfall, and closer to coastline, the negative effects of cold demands on aggressive behavior are stronger. (shrink)

Conflict can profoundly affect individuals and their groups. Oftentimes, conflict involves a clash between one side seeking change and increased gains through victory and the other side defending the status quo and protecting against loss and defeat. However, theory and empirical research largely neglected these conflicts between attackers and defenders, and the strategic, social, and psychological consequences of attack and defense remain poorly understood. To fill this void, we model (1) the clashing of attack and defense as games of strategy (...) and reveal that (2) attack benefits from mismatching its target's level of defense, whereas defense benefits from matching the attacker's competitiveness. This suggests that (3) attack recruits neuroendocrine pathways underlying behavioral activation and overconfidence, whereas defense invokes neural networks for behavioral inhibition, vigilant scanning, and hostile attributions; and that (4) people invest less in attack than defense, and attack often fails. Finally, we propose that (5) in intergroup conflict, out-group attack needs institutional arrangements that motivate and coordinate collective action, whereas in-group defense benefits from endogenously emerging in-group identification. We discuss how games of attack and defense may have shaped human capacities for prosociality and aggression, and how third parties can regulate such conflicts and reduce their waste. (shrink)

Authors of non-liberal proposals experience more collegial objections than others do. These objections are often couched as criticism of determinism, reductionism, or methodological individualism, but from a scientific viewpoint such criticism could be easily answered. Underneath it is a wish to harness scientific belief in service of positive social values, at the cost of reducing objectivity.