Richard Nisbett and University of Illinois psychologist Dov Cohen wrote this book arguing that a strong “culture of honor”—in which reputation must be protected at all cost—is responsible for higher homicide rates among whites in the American South. In a classic experiment conducted in the RCGD laboratories, investigators measured testosterone and cortisol levels in male undergraduates after they had been bumped into and sworn at in a hallway, and found higher levels and more signs of anger in students from the South.
