There's A Tear in my Beer

As a Sociologist, I am very interested in groups. I find it very odd that people act so differently in groups than they do individually. One of these phenomena is a subculture.

A subculture is the culture of groups whose values and norms of behavior are somewhat different from those of the dominant culture.
We are pretty used to encountering subcultures in our day to day lives. My college campus is a subculture, as is a church, a professional association, and a social networking website.
Subcultures get really interesting when they turn crazy stuff that the dominant culture would never stand for into norms.
A few examples that come to mind are cults, sororities, and Mormons.

Cults can convince sane people that it is normal behavior to move to Ghana and kill your baby before killing yourself.
Sororities can convince intelligent, attractive women to degrade themselves publicly in order to join.
Mormons can convince large groups of women that it is normal to be treated as a second class citizen in a house where their husbands have multiple wives.

I read an interesting article today in the academic journal Social Forces (just a sociology journal). It was titled 'The Effect of Country Music on Suicide' by Steven Stack and Jim Gundlach.
These guys did research where they compared the suicide rate in 49 different metropolitan areas with the proportion of radio airtime devoted to country music. They then controlled for poverty, southern locale, divorce, and gun availability (all common predictors of suicide).

They found that there was a very significant correlation between white suicide rates and country music. Metropolitan areas with a high proportion of country music airtime are also high in suicides.

It's not hard to imagine why. The researchers state that three fourths of country songs are about broken hearts, over 50% of the songs are about financial strain, and an incredible number of them represent alcohol abuse as a normal way to deal with your problems.

Here is the interesting part. They aren't claiming that the country music is what causes people to commit suicide, but the country music subculture.
You see, there was no correlation between black suicide and country music.
Black people may listen to country music, but they don't view themselves as part of the country music subculture.

Why would the country music subculture affect rate of suicide, you ask? The researchers say that when a group forms a subculture, the impact of music on mood can be multiplied.
That's right, being a member of a subculture can make music have a bigger impact on your mood. Think of it like being at a concert with a bunch of moshers, or on a dance floor, or your school band playing at a football game. Your participation in all of these subcultures makes you experience the music more than if you were listening to it at home alone.
Because black people don't buy into the country music subculture, they are able to view country music as just music, not a way of life. Country music was found to foster a suicidal mood among people in the subculture, not among the casual listeners.

This article totally creeped me out. I think that from now on I am going to pay much closer attention to my subcultures and what norms they could be indoctrinating me with.