After Sunday’s announcement that bin Laden had been killed, people gathered in front of the White House and Ground Zero in what many social scientists say was a rare moment of American unity. The Christian Science Monitor turned to social scientists to reflect upon these celebrations.

“It’s one of those things that is as close to what passes for a day of national unity in the U.S. as we can get these days,” said Peter Ditto, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine who studies politics and judgment.

But, debates are already in full swing, as people consider whether flag-waving and chanting were appropriate ways to respond to a death.

At times, the scene seemed like that of a sporting event, with people climbing lamp posts and singing “Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye),” a song more associated with losing basketball teams than the war on terror. That’s not a surprising dynamic, according to Francesco Duina, a sociologist at Bates College in Maine and author of “Winning: Reflections on an American Obsession” (Princeton University Press, 2011). American culture is particularly competitive, Duina said.

“The percentage of Americans who embrace competition is higher than the percentage in any other industrialized country in the world,” Duina told LiveScience.

Duina also shared that to many people, bin Laden’s death is a confirmation that our approach to life is superior to his.  “That’s what’s being celebrated, and that’s why you see the flags.”

Political differences likely explain some differences in opinion regarding the appropriate way to respond to this death.  But, sociologists point out another—generational differences.  Many people in the crowds were college students, who often don’t have to work early in the morning.

But young people also experienced 9/11 differently than those in older age cohorts, said Andrew Perrin, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who has studied the cultural aftereffects of 9/11.

“If you were 8 or 9 at the time, by the time you began thinking about world politics, 9/11 was a thoroughly interpreted, thoroughly understood, if you will, cultural event,” Perrin told LiveScience. “So you didn’t go through the same level of experiencing this unsettled time and doing the work of interpreting it. You experienced it as something that was thoroughly understood before it was presented to you.”