Ecological Origins of Freedom: Pathogens, Heat Stress, and Frontier Topography Predict More Vertical but Less Horizontal Governmental Restriction

Abstract

What kinds of physical environments make for free societies? The present research investigates the effect of three different types of ecological stressors (climate stress, pathogen stress, and frontier topography) on two measurements of governmental restriction: Vertical restriction involves select persons imposing asymmetrical laws on others, while horizontal restriction involves laws that restrict most members of a society equally. Investigation 1 validates our measurements of vertical and horizontal restriction. Investigation 2 demonstrates that, across both U.S. states and a sample of nations, ecological stressors tend to cause more vertically restrictive societies but less horizontally restrictive societies. Investigation 3 demonstrates that assortative sociality partially mediates ecological stress→restriction relationships across nations, but not in U.S. states. Although some stressor-specific effects emerged (most notably, cold stress consistently showed effects in the opposite direction), these results in the main suggest that ecological stress simultaneously creates opposing pressures that push freedom in two different directions.

Northerners and Southerners Differ in Conflict Culture

“…Conway et al. () produced markers of legal discrimination for each U.S. state that were parallel to those used across nations. We used the median latitude and median longitude in each state to predict this marker of legal discrimination within the United States.…”

“…To showcase how this can be done, we used available data to explore a within-country test of the north-south perspective on one of the markers of conflict attitudes used in our cross-national analyses: legal discrimination. Conway et al (2017) produced markers of legal discrimination for each U.S. state that were parallel to those used across nations. We used the median latitude and median longitude in each state to predict this marker of legal discrimination within the United States.…”

“…This narrow focus offers potential confounds that might be unique to the hemisphere under scrutiny. To more fully provide support for any large‐scale model, it is important to triangulate those results across many different types of samples (Conway et al., ; Kitayama, Conway, Pietromonaco, Park, & Plaut, ). The honor‐culture theory and the CLASH model implicitly assume differences between Northerners and Southerners to be universal.…”

Got Milk? How Freedoms Evolved From Dairying Climates

“…To illustrate the last weakness, consider the following study on two kinds of freedom. Conway et al (2017) made a distinction between vertical restrictions of freedoms by select persons imposing asymmetrical laws on others, and horizontal restrictions through laws that constrain most members of a society equally. They then showed that much ecological stress (heat stress, parasite stress, and frontier topography stress) tends to increase vertical restrictions and decrease horizontal restrictions of freedoms.…”

“…Cold stress, by contrast, leads to less vertical restrictions of freedoms, especially in rich countries, and to more horizontal restrictions of freedoms irrespective of the country’s level of wealth. So, Conway et al’s (2017) study about the ecological origins of freedoms exposes the incompleteness of the present exploration by directing full attention to the co-occurring cultural dynamics of freedoms for some and freedoms for all. We strongly encourage more time- and location-sensitive analyses of such processes at different time and geographic scales.…”