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Cross-Cultural Research
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Risk-Taking Reproductive Competition Explains National Murder Rates Better Than Socioeconomic Inequality

Michael Minkov

Sofia University

This article presents evidence that national murder rates are not well explained as a function of socioeconomic inequality; risk-taking reproductive competition (RTRC) provides a better explanation. RTRC is a single nation-level dimension, measurable through national road death tolls, adolescent fertility rates, and Gini coefficients (thus, socioeconomic inequality is just one facet of it). RTRC explains 50% of the variance in national differences in murder rates— far more than Gini coefficients alone. RTRC correlates highly with national values that explicitly reflect full approval of interpersonal competition as well as perceptions of full life control (being free to act as one pleases). Respondents from societies that score higher on RTRC tend to perceive their fellow citizens as more emotional, impulsive, and lacking deliberation. The author discusses the origins of the national differences in RTRC and he proposes that high-scoring countries do not have a long history of intensive agriculture.

Key Words: murder rates • risk-taking • reproductive competition • socioeconomic inequality

This version was published on February 1, 2009

Cross-Cultural Research, Vol. 43, No. 1, 3-29 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1069397108326290
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