Southern gentleman

The traditional culture of the Southern United States has been called a "culture of honor", that is, a culture where people avoid intentionally offending others, and maintain a reputation for not accepting improper conduct by others. A prevalent theory as to why the American South had or may have this culture is an assumed regional belief in retribution to enforce one's rights and deter predation against one’s family, home and possessions. The concept was tested by social scientists Richard Nisbett and Dov Cohen in their book Culture of Honor and repopularized by a discussion in Chapter Six of Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

The "culture of honor" in the Southern United States is hypothesized by some social scientists to have its roots in the livelihoods of the early settlers who first inhabited the region. Unlike settlers with an agricultural heritage (mainly from the densely populated South East England and East Anglia) who settled in New England, the Southern United States was settled by herders from Scotland, Northern Ireland, Northern England and the West Country. Herds, unlike crops, are vulnerable to theft because they are mobile and there is little government wherewithal to enforce property rights of herd animals. The theory is that developing a reputation for violent retribution against those who stole herd animals was one way to discourage theft.

This thesis is limited, however, by modern evidence that a culture of honor in the American South is strongest not in the hill country, where this thesis suggests it has its cultural origins, but in Southern lowlands. These observers argue that poverty or religion, which has been distinctive in the American South since the Second Great Awakening in the 19th century, may be a more important source of this cultural phenomenon.

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