A cross-cultural comparison of responses to true accusations and the role of honor values

In honor cultures (e.g., Turkey, Southern US), self-worth depends on one’s own perception and on other people’s opinions about oneself, and reputation is very important. In dignity cultures (Northern US, Western Europe), self-worth mainly depends on the individual and cannot be taken away by others. In this work, I investigated how people from an honor culture, Turkey, and from a dignity culture, northern US, emotionally and behaviorally responded to two types of conflict: A true accusation of a transgression and negative performance feedback. Honor has three facets common to these two cultures: Social respect (being respectable in society), moral behavior (being honest), and self-respect (feeling proud of oneself). I proposed that true accusations of a transgression would be a complete honor threat because they threatened all three facets, whereas private negative performance feedback would only be a self-respect threat. I conducted an online survey (Experiment 1) and a laboratory study (Experiment 2) to compare the two cultures. In Experiment 1, participants read conflict scenarios and imagined themselves as the target of the scenario. They indicated how they would feel and behaviorally respond to the conflict source (e.g., the accuser). In Experiment 2, participants were actually accused by an experimenter for cheating on a task or received negative performance feedback. Their emotional and behavioral responses were measured with multiple methods. Results revealed that for people from Turkey (an honor culture), being rightfully accused of a transgression was more humiliating and anger-provoking than receiving poor performance feedback. Moreover, Turkish people became more defensive in response to rightful accusations compared to negative performance feedback. I also found that northern Americans (a dignity culture), perceived rightful accusations and negative performance feedback similarly humiliating and anger-provoking, and they became similarly defensive in response to these two threats. These results are in line with the importance and centrality of reputation and social respect in honor cultures and the emphasis on achievements and positive self-esteem in individualistic dignity cultures. The findings of this work may have implications for many contexts such as politics, work relations, and romantic relationships

Need for approval from others and face concerns as predictors of interpersonal conflict outcome in 29 cultural groups

The extent to which culture moderates the effects of need for approval from others on a person\u27s handling of interpersonal conflict was investigated. Students from 24 nations rated how they handled a recent interpersonal conflict, using measures derived from face-negotiation theory. Samples varied in the extent to which they were perceived as characterised by the cultural logics of dignity, honour, or face. It was hypothesised that the emphasis on harmony within face cultures would reduce the relevance of need for approval from others to face-negotiation concerns. Respondents rated their need for approval from others and how much they sought to preserve their own face and the face of the other party during the conflict. Need for approval was associated with concerns for both self-face and other-face. However, as predicted, the association between need for approval from others and concern for self-face was weaker where face logic was prevalent. Favourable conflict outcome was positively related to other-face and negatively related to self-face and to need for approval from others, but there were no significant interactions related to prevailing cultural logics. The results illustrate how particular face-threatening factors can moderate the distinctive face-concerns earlier found to characterise individualistic and collectivistic cultural groups

A price to pay: Turkish and American retaliation for threats to personal and family honor

Two studies investigated retaliatory responses to actual honor threats among members of an honor culture (Turkey) and a dignity culture (northern U.S.). The honor threat in these studies was based on previous research which has shown that honesty is a key element of the conception of honor and that accusations of dishonesty are threatening to one’s honor. In both studies, participants wrote an essay describing the role of honesty in their lives and received feedback on their essay accusing them of being dishonest (vs. neutral feedback). Turkish participants retaliated more strongly than did northern U.S. participants against the person who challenged their honesty by assigning him/her to solve more difficult tangrams over easy ones (Study 1) and by choosing sensory tasks of a higher level of intensity to complete (Study 2). Study 2 added a relational honor condition, in which participants wrote about honesty in their parents’ lives and examined the role of individual differences in honor values in retaliation. Endorsement of honor values predicted retaliation among Turkish participants in both the personal and relational honor conditions, but not among northern U.S. participants

Cultures of honor

Cultures of honor developed in contexts in which a person’s livelihood was easily stolen (such as a herd of animals) and the rule of law was weak. In such contexts, men were required to develop a reputation for toughness and willingness to retaliate quickly and aggressively when threatened, so that others would not consider stealing their property. Consequently, cultures of honor have developed ideologies, norms, and practices that reinforce the importance of maintaining social respect through aggressive means if necessary. In this chapter, we first briefly review the initial work by anthropologists, sociologists and historians that described cultures of honor in the Mediterranean region and southern US states. This early work formed the foundation of research by Nisbett, Cohen, and their colleagues, who carefully articulated a psychological theory of how concerns for honor may explain higher rates of aggression and violence in southern US states compared to northern states. We then summarize research on components of honor, behavioral and psychological consequences of honor, and socialization practices that maintain cultures of honor. We finish by discussing possible future directions and methodological considerations in research on cultures of honor. This research has extended the scope of cultural psychology by going beyond the more common east-west comparisons; it has the potential to help explain behavior of groups that have not been widely studied by social psychologists

The role of culture in appraisals, emotions, and helplessness in response to threats

In honour cultures such as Turkey, reputation management is emphasized, whereas in dignity cultures such as northern US, self-respect and personal achievements are central. Turkey is also a collectivistic culture, where relationship harmony is as important as reputation management. When Turkish people’s reputation is threatened, they may experience an internal conflict between these two motives and display helplessness. In this study, we predicted and found that Turkish participants anticipated stronger anger, shame, and helplessness in response to reputation threat than self-respect threat situations, whereas these differences were non-existent or smaller in northern US. Moreover, shame was a mediator between appraisal and helplessness for reputation threats in Turkey (shame positively predicted helplessness), whereas anger was a mediator between appraisal and helplessness for self-respect threats in northern US (anger negatively predicted helplessness). These results are novel in their inclusion of helplessness and appraisal theory of emotions when examining honour and dignity cultures

Sex differences in self-construal and in depressive symptoms: predictors of cross-national variation

Sex differences in aspects of independent versus interdependent self-construal and depressive symptoms were surveyed among 5,320 students from 24 nations. Men were found to perceive themselves as more self-contained whereas women perceived themselves as more connected to others. No significant sex differences were found on two further dimensions of self-construal, or on a measure of depressive symptoms. Multilevel modeling was used to test the ability of a series of predictors derived from a social identity perspective and from evolutionary theory to moderate sex differences. Contrary to most prior studies of personality, sex differences in self-construal were larger in samples from nations scoring lower on the Gender Gap Index, and the Human Development Index. Sex differences were also greater in nations with higher pathogen prevalence, higher self-reported religiosity, and in nations with high reported avoidance of settings with strong norms. The findings are discussed in terms of the interrelatedness of self-construals and the cultural contexts in which they are elicited and the distinctiveness of student samples

Need for approval from others and face concerns as predictors of interpersonal conflict outcome in 29 cultural groups

The extent to which culture moderates the effects of need for approval from others on a person's handling of interpersonal conflict was investigated. Students from 24 nations rated how they handled a recent interpersonal conflict, using measures derived from face-negotiation theory. Samples varied in the extent to which they were perceived as characterised by the cultural logics of dignity, honour, or face. It was hypothesised that the emphasis on harmony within face cultures would reduce the relevance of need for approval from others to face-negotiation concerns. Respondents rated their need for approval from others and how much they sought to preserve their own face and the face of the other party during the conflict. Need for approval was associated with concerns for both self-face and other-face. However, as predicted, the association between need for approval from others and concern for self-face was weaker where face logic was prevalent. Favourable conflict outcome was positively related to other-face and negatively related to self-face and to need for approval from others, but there were no significant interactions related to prevailing cultural logics. The results illustrate how particular face-threatening factors can moderate the distinctive face-concerns earlier found to characterise individualistic and collectivistic cultural groups

A cross-cultural comparison of responses to true accusations and the role of honor values

In honor cultures (e.g., Turkey, Southern US), self-worth depends on one’s own perception and on other people’s opinions about oneself, and reputation is very important. In dignity cultures (Northern US, Western Europe), self-worth mainly depends on the individual and cannot be taken away by others. In this work, I investigated how people from an honor culture, Turkey, and from a dignity culture, northern US, emotionally and behaviorally responded to two types of conflict: A true accusation of a transgression and negative performance feedback. Honor has three facets common to these two cultures: Social respect (being respectable in society), moral behavior (being honest), and self-respect (feeling proud of oneself). I proposed that true accusations of a transgression would be a complete honor threat because they threatened all three facets, whereas private negative performance feedback would only be a self-respect threat. I conducted an online survey (Experiment 1) and a laboratory study (Experiment 2) to compare the two cultures. In Experiment 1, participants read conflict scenarios and imagined themselves as the target of the scenario. They indicated how they would feel and behaviorally respond to the conflict source (e.g., the accuser). In Experiment 2, participants were actually accused by an experimenter for cheating on a task or received negative performance feedback. Their emotional and behavioral responses were measured with multiple methods. Results revealed that for people from Turkey (an honor culture), being rightfully accused of a transgression was more humiliating and anger-provoking than receiving poor performance feedback. Moreover, Turkish people became more defensive in response to rightful accusations compared to negative performance feedback. I also found that northern Americans (a dignity culture), perceived rightful accusations and negative performance feedback similarly humiliating and anger-provoking, and they became similarly defensive in response to these two threats. These results are in line with the importance and centrality of reputation and social respect in honor cultures and the emphasis on achievements and positive self-esteem in individualistic dignity cultures. The findings of this work may have implications for many contexts such as politics, work relations, and romantic relationships.</p

Emotional responses to honor situations in Turkey and the northern USA

The main goal of the current research is to investigate emotional reactions to situations that implicate honor in Turkish and northern American cultural groups. In Studies 1a and 1b, participants rated the degree to which a variety of events fit their prototypes for honor-related situations. Both Turkish and American participants evaluated situations generated by their co-nationals as most central to their prototypes of honor-related situations. Study 2 examined emotional responses to Turkish or U.S.-generated situations that varied in centrality to the prototype. Highly central situations and Turkish-generated situations elicited stronger emotions than less central situations and U.S.-generated situations. Americans reported higher levels of positive emotions in response to honor-enhancing situations than did Turkish participants. These findings demonstrate that the prototypes of honor relevant situations differ for Turkish and northern American people, and that Turkish honor relevant situations are more emotion-laden than are northern American honor relevant situations