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I want you to ponder sentences about vengeance
Females, older people, working people, people who live in high-crime areas of their country and people who are at the bottom 50% of their country's income distribution are more vengeful.
Here's a more traditional result:
The findings suggest that vengeful feelings of people are subdued as a country develops economically and becomes more stable politically and socially and that both country characteristics and personal attributes are important determinants of vengeance.
Here is the paper, here is the author's home page.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on July 16, 2008 at 01:22 PM in Data Source | Permalink
Comments
I will get you for posting this!
Posted by: Jacqueline at Jul 16, 2008 1:40:58 PM
"Females, older people, working people,... high crime areas, ... bottom 50%" Who does that leave? Well to do unemployed young males who live in nice neighbourhoods? Has this been validated at Harvard frat houses?
Posted by: Chris at Jul 16, 2008 1:43:07 PM
I was always frustrated by the vengeful culture in Yemen. I had been chalking it up to Arab culture, maybe a religious thing, etc. but then a student of mine pointed out something pretty obvious. If you cannot rely on the state to administer justice, or it is the state itself that is causing the problem, you have very little option other than to resort to vigilantism, and that looks an awful lot like vengeance...
Isaac Crawford
Blogging in Yemen
www.isaharr.com
Posted by: Isaac Crawford at Jul 16, 2008 1:48:46 PM
working people
Meaning people with jobs? Or meaning working-class people?
Posted by: Hei Lun Chan at Jul 16, 2008 2:09:15 PM
The bottom 50% -- how do you get rid of that?
Posted by: mae at Jul 16, 2008 2:14:00 PM
I found this sentence interesting:
"Poor people who live in higher-income societies that are ethno-linguistically homogeneous are as vengeful as rich people who live in low-income societies that are ethno-linguistically fragmented."
They are equally vengeful or equally placid? What are examples of each case?
Posted by: khc at Jul 16, 2008 2:17:39 PM
Is "vengeful" just another way of saying cranky and passive-aggressive?
Posted by: at Jul 16, 2008 2:18:41 PM
It makes perfect sense. Stakes are higher for a poor guy than for a rich so he will hold more grudges for each loss. The opportunity cost is lower for a poor guy to invest into vengeance, and the payoff potentially high, even though the effect of most small-time vengeance is nothing but self-alienating. Once a mind is set on a zero-sum game of losses, to be vengeful is really for the pursuit of a more productive live.
Posted by: Yan Li at Jul 16, 2008 3:15:19 PM
The bottom 50% -- how do you get rid of that?
No one should be in the bottom 50%! Only cowboy capitalist countries where man exploits man* and where they don't practice social justice would people tolerate this tate of affairs. How unfair!
*In social democracies the opposite occurs. Don't let it be said that JKG was without any merit at all.
Posted by: eurotwit at Jul 16, 2008 3:50:48 PM
Taking vengeance is expensive. What if people who are able to suppress their vengeful desires, as through a religious belief -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWvViYE96nI -- have more time to put into productive activities, and get richer?
Posted by: Don Marti at Jul 16, 2008 4:05:37 PM
So steer clear of the older working women heading home to the south side of Chicago this evening. They'll bite your head off.
Posted by: misplaced trust co. at Jul 16, 2008 4:31:30 PM
There was a good article in The New Yorker about vengeance.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/04/21/080421fa_fact_diamond?currentPage=all
Posted by: asparagus at Jul 16, 2008 5:30:59 PM
this surprises me. i remember just recently (within the past year?) seeing one of those pseudoscientific headlines about a study showing that men care more about punishment in justice and women care more about something caring and cuddly I i forget exactly what). i guess i just assumed that this meant men would be far more vengeful.
maybe someone can find what i was referring to?
Posted by: gihasg at Jul 16, 2008 6:59:47 PM
"The bottom 50% -- how do you get rid of that?"
Simply awesome.
Posted by: themightypuck at Jul 16, 2008 7:07:04 PM
Nice to see they are still testing Hobbes. Frankly, given my rudimentary understanding of statistics and bias, I'm amazed that 16th and 17th century thinkers got so far on intuition.
Posted by: themightypuck at Jul 16, 2008 7:13:11 PM
Gihasg,
It isn't as recent as the headline you saw, but this would be what you're referring to
In A Different Voice, by Carol Gilligan
http://acypher.com/BookNotes/Gilligan.html
(published in 1982)
Posted by: stubydoo at Jul 16, 2008 9:12:26 PM
Okay. I'm done pondering. Now what should I do? :-)
Posted by: Michael F. Martin at Jul 17, 2008 1:48:09 PM
thanks stubydoo that was very helpful. now i know what women want. unfortunately it turns out im still stuck in adolescent mode
Posted by: gihasg at Jul 17, 2008 4:41:28 PM
"The bottom 50% -- how do you get rid of that?"
Redefine it? The lower two quartiles? The lower half?
Nope, I think you're stuck with it.
Posted by: Oliver T. at Jul 18, 2008 10:33:44 PM
