Honor Bound

Abstract

The authors tested the hypotheses that Turkish and (Northern) American cultures afford different honor-relevant situations and different responses to these situations. In Study 1, the authors found that honor-attacking situations generated by American participants focused more on the individual than did situations generated by Turkish participants, whereas situations generated by Turkish participants focused more on close others and involved more references to an audience than did situations generated by American participants. Moreover, the situations most frequently generated by both groups tended to also differ in nature. In Study 2, new participants evaluated these situations for their impact on the self, close others, and acquaintances’ feelings about their family. Turkish participants tended to evaluate situations as having greater impact on all targets than did American participants. Turkish participants also evaluated all situations to have a similar impact on their own feelings and close others’ feelings about themselves, whereas Americans evaluated the situations to have more extreme impact on their own feelings than on the feelings of close others. Situations generated by Turkish participants were evaluated to have stronger impact on all targets.

Keywords

honor culture Turkey Northern United States situation sampling method

In approximately 380 BC, Plato theorized in The Republic that the human soul is composed of three parts. He argued that one of these parts, spiritedness (thumos), is characterized by love of honor and victory. Thousands of years later, in support of Plato’s assertion, social scientists have discovered the psychological importance of honor in many different regions of the world. Although the existence and importance of honor have been identified in many cultures, its salience, forms, and associated responses tend to vary considerably. For example, John McCain, the Republican nominee for President in the 2008 U.S. elections, said that, to be faithful to his own principles, he spent years in prison in Hanoi following the Vietnam War rather than accepting a release he considered dishonorable (“Understanding John McCain,” 2008). The Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, walked off the stage at the World Economic Forum meetings in Davos in January 2009 after being cut off by the moderator of the panel. Erdogan later explained his behavior by saying that he did so to protect the honor of Turkey and the Turkish people (“Turkish PM Given Hero’s Welcome,” 2009). In this article, we examine the meaning of honor in the northern region of the United States and Turkey, by asking how the situational and psychological manifestations of honor may vary across these two cultural groups.

What Is Honor?

Honor was initially studied by anthropologists in Middle Eastern, North African, and Mediterranean cultures. Later, primarily social psychological work in Western parts of the world (e.g., Nisbett & Cohen, 1996; Rodriguez Mosquera, Manstead, & Fisher, 2000, 2002a, 2002b) demonstrated that the experience of honor is not limited to the Mediterranean and surrounding regions; honor is a concept woven within the Western heritage that plays an important role in shaping human psychology (Gregg, 2007). There are, however, distinct differences in the meaning and salience of honor in these two cultural worlds. In Western cultural contexts, honor is generally defined as “strong moral character or strength, and adherence to ethical principles” (Encarta Dictionary, n.d., 2009). This definition focuses on the individual alone as the source of honor and defines honor as primarily a property of the individual. Although, at present, honor is not a very salient feature of everyday psychological experiences of members of Western societies (with the exception of Southern United States, see, e.g., Cohen, Nisbett, Bowdle, & Schwarz, 1996; Nisbett & Cohen, 1996).

In contrast, honor in circum-Mediterranean regions is viewed more complexly and is typically defined as positive moral standing and pride that is related to one’s own perception of worth and to other people’s respect (Peristiany, 1965). In these contexts, honor is a value deeply ingrained in individuals’ social worlds to the extent that “…people automatically respond to events and build reputations, personalities, or selves in its [honor’s] terms” (Gregg, 2007, p. 92). Societies where honor is a salient concept that directs much of people’s behavior have been termed honor cultures. In such cultures, prestige and respect are hard to gain and easy to lose; people therefore engage in a variety of behaviors in order to earn or maintain the respect of others, and threats to one’s honor must be vigorously defended (Peristiany, 1965).

To date, most of the contemporary social psychological research on honor has been conducted in the United States, comparing Northerners’ and Southerners’ responses to honor threats (e.g., Cohen et al., 1996; Cohen & Nisbett, 1997; Nisbett & Cohen, 1996). Vandello and Cohen (1999) describe the U.S. South as an honor culture, but conceptions of honor in this context are highly likely shaped by the general American social values of individualism and personal autonomy. Hints of differing conceptions of honor are found in comparative research that involves collectivist honor cultures. For example, research by Rodriguez Mosquera et al. (2000, 2002a, 2002b) suggests culturally variable forms of honor: honor that includes the attributes and behaviors of close others, especially family members (as with the Spanish, members of a Mediterranean culture of honor), and honor that is limited primarily to the individual and his or her own achievement, reputation, and character (as with the Dutch, members of an individualistic nonhonor culture).

Honor in Turkey and Northern United States

Similar to other Mediterranean cultures, Turkish culture is tightly wrapped around sentiments of honor. Honor in Turkey has been examined primarily using qualitative methods by cultural anthropologists and sociologists (e.g., Bagli & Sev’er, 2003; Kardam, 2005). These studies reveal that honor belongs to individuals as members of families and sometimes to bigger social groups. Each person is dependent on the behavior of the rest of the family or other social groups for his or her status as an honorable member of the community. Social groups other than family that might shape one’s honor can be one’s tribe, village, ethnicity, region, or religious sect, among others. In its desirable form, honor is a basic dimension of Turkish culture, where one’s honorable deeds are looked upon as a valued possession. Honor reinforces close ties binding the individual, family, kin, and community (Ozgur & Sunar, 1982). This is represented by a quote from a participant in research by Mesquita (2001):

I was admitted to Turkey’s most competitive university. . . . [That I won the competition] was important to my mom. It was my mother’s pride that she could use my success against lots of people. They asked her if they could see my university ID and without me knowing it, my mom had taken it to show them. My parents had invited all their relatives and neighbors over to their house to celebrate this success. …They kissed me and wished me well, but I knew that they privately thought “Damn it, you won again.” … After I won [the competition], many families were prepared to offer me their daughters to marry. Of course, my self-esteem increased. (p. 68)

As this quote describes, the son’s success is a property that can be shared by others in his immediate family. Likewise, a failure or disgrace committed by one member of the family causes the rest of the family to lose honor (Bagli & Sev’er, 2003; Kardam, 2005). Thus, in many collectivist honor cultures, honor is a shared resource; individuals are socialized to always be concerned about the effects of their own behavior on the social reputation of their families and other social groups.

In contrast, in Northern American settings, honor is primarily an individual attribute. Like the Dutch of Rodriguez Mosquera et al.’s (2002a, 2002b) studies, we anticipate that Americans from a Northern state will think of honor in relation to personal achievement and individual behavior. Moreover, in Northern U.S. settings honor is not a particularly salient construct, nor does it strongly influence social behavior. In terms of a recent distinction introduced by Leung and Cohen (2011), Northern United States can be classified as a dignity culture of which members are defined by their inherent worth, which does not depend on the esteem of other people or situational characteristics. This is in contrast to honor cultures where self-evaluation has both an internal and external quality. Since inherent worth cannot be easily challenged or influenced by others, Americans from Northern states are much less likely to respond aggressively to honor threats than are participants from Southern states, as shown by Cohen et al. (e.g., Cohen & Nisbett, 1994, 1997; Cohen et al., 1996).

Thus, this research extends existing work on honor to examine how it is embedded in common situations in a society that is understudied in cross-cultural research in general and honor research in particular—Turkey. Turkey shares some of the same influences and values as other Mediterranean societies, such as Spain, but it is also markedly different in its historical and religious foundations. Furthermore, most honor-related research has focused primarily on the consequences of a few narrowly defined threats to honor and have largely ignored the effects of honor-enhancing events. This research begins to remedy these oversights by examining the content and consequences of a broad range of both honor-threatening and honor-enhancing events in two groups of people with differing understandings of honor: individuals in the Northern region of the United States and Turkey.

Situations as Carriers of Honor

Cultures are dynamic systems; constructs such as honor are embedded in cultural customs (e.g., socializing children to defend themselves against insults), social structures (e.g., family involvement in deciding how to approach a family member’s dishonorable conduct), and everyday practices and scripts (e.g., responding to a child’s misbehavior with the words “How can you embarrass us like this?!”). As Kitayama (2002) explains, ideals, values, and beliefs are substantially communicated through social situations and contexts that afford particular responses and behaviors (termed cultural affordances; Kitayama & Markus, 1999). For example, consistent with cultural differences in the value of self-enhancement versus self-criticism, American contexts afford many more opportunities for people to enhance their self-esteem than do Japanese contexts (e.g., Kitayama, Markus, Matsumoto, & Norasakkunkit, 1997). Similarly, consistent with cultural differences in preferences for primary versus secondary control strategies (Weisz, Rothbaum, & Blackburn, 1984), American contexts afford more opportunities for the individual to exert influence over a situation than do Japanese contexts, whereas Japanese contexts afford more opportunities for the individual to adjust to others than do American contexts (Morling, Kitayama, & Miyamoto, 2002). In short, cultural values are communicated across situations in everyday events.

Given the differing importance and salience of honor in Turkish and Northern American cultural contexts, we expect that situations encountered in these cultures afford different honor-related experiences. These differences may be traced to differences in self-construals that are constructed in individualist and collectivist cultures (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). In individualist contexts, individuals tend to construct self-representations in which they are separate from others, in which firm boundaries distinguish the self from others, and in which the individual is responsible for his or her actions alone. In contrast, in collectivist cultures, individuals tend to construct self-representations in which they are defined by their close relationships with others, as well as their membership in social groups, and in which the individual’s behaviors reflect on his or her entire family. Thus, when Americans are asked to describe honor-relevant situations, they will tend to portray events that involve an individual alone rather than close others such as family members, whereas Turkish people will tend to describe more situations that involve close others and social groups or collectives that matter to them than will Americans. Moreover, being honorable in collectivist honor-cultures is related not only to one’s own perception of worth but also to other people’s respect (e.g., Pitt-Rivers, 1965; Rodriguez Mosquera et al., 2002a, 2002b). Therefore, situations that include other individuals as observers or witnesses who then might form a positive or negative evaluation of the individual may have a particularly strong impact on one’s honor. Thus, we predict that Turkish people will describe more situations involving an audience than will Americans.

In the present work, we also examine the nature of situations by coding the types of attributes, events, or behaviors that they entail. This approach allows us to identify the kinds of situations that are considered to have an effect on one’s honor and the extent to which the members of the two cultural groups are similar to or different from each other in this respect.

Evaluations of Situations

After repeated exposure to situations that prime a particular response—be it self-enhancement, influence, or concerns about honor—people will develop corresponding psychological responses and strategies (Kitayama et al., 1997). Thus, if people in Turkey are exposed to many situations that implicate one’s honor and if concerns about honor importantly shape their behavior, Turkish people will be quick to evaluate events for their relevance to personal or family honor, they will tend to develop chronically activated schemas for honor-related situations, and they will have ready responses to these situations. In contrast, if Americans encounter few honor-related situations and if honor-related concerns are not very influential driving forces on behavior, Americans will be less likely to develop these corresponding psychological responses and strategies. Furthermore, situations that commonly evoke associations with honor in Turkey may be interpreted quite differently by Americans. Americans may have relatively ready responses for situations that impact individual feelings of honor but little experience and only weak psychological responses to situations that implicate family honor. Thus, Turkish participants should be more likely to assess honor-relevant situations to have a greater impact on their own self-worth and on the self-worth of close others compared to American participants. Moreover, as the statement by the young Turkish man above illustrates, Turkish participants should be more likely to perceive that events happening to them will affect their family’s feelings of self-worth as much as their own. Americans, however, should be more likely to believe that events that happen to them will impact their own self-worth more than close others’ self-worth.

We took this issue a step further and also investigated perceptions of the effects of honor-related situations on acquaintances’ (i.e., nonfamily members) evaluations. We anticipated that in a collectivist culture, an individual’s honorable or dishonorable behavior may influence outsiders’ evaluations of the individual and his or her family. One reason why events in Turkey are imbued with honor-related implications is that one must demonstrate to a wide range of people (e.g., neighbors, teachers, acquaintances) that one has good character and belongs to an honorable family. Thus, we expected Turkish people to be more concerned than Americans with the effects of their own honor-related experiences on acquaintances’ feelings about their family.

Finally, Turkish situations are likely to be relatively more potent than American situations. In Turkish settings, the honor code is experienced as an overarching value system; thus, Turkish people may construe a greater variety of positive and negative situations to be related to honor than will Americans. These situations are likely to include occurrences that have greater potential consequences for the individual (also see Pratt Ewing, 2008). Consequently, Turkish situations may evoke stronger emotional responses than American situations among both Turkish and American individuals. Because honor is not as salient in Northern American cultural settings, American situations may evoke weaker emotional responses than Turkish situations.

Situation Sampling Method

Following Bourdieu’s (1966) argument that “in practice, the system of the values of honor is lived rather than clearly conceived” (p. 231), we decided to employ a modified version of the situation sampling method devised by Kitayama et al. (Kitayama et al., 1997; Morling et al., 2002) to unfold the nature of honor in Northern United States and Turkey. The situation sampling method allows researchers to examine features of situations that are experienced in different cultural contexts and ways in which individuals from different cultural groups respond to these situations.

Previous research that employed the situation sampling method examined two types of situations (e.g., adjustment vs. influence situations as in Morling et al., 2002) that were believed to be conducive to different psychological outcomes (e.g., relatedness or efficacy) in particular cultural contexts. In the current research, we used this method to examine honor-related situations in Turkey and the Northern United States in terms of their content (Study 1) and the responses they evoke (Study 2). In Study 1, we asked participants to list situations that they thought would be most effective if someone wanted to (a) attack or insult somebody else’s honor or (b) enhance or increase somebody else’s honor. We designed the questions to evoke examples of situations that are culturally consensual (see Wagerman & Funder, 2009). This approach allows us to examine what is near and dear to a person’s sense of honor (see a similar approach used by Semin & Rubini, 1990, to study insults), rather than capturing instances that might be idiosyncratic to individuals’ lives or that are difficult for members of the other cultural group to recognize. Moreover, consensual beliefs, values, or situations are shown to be as informative (or more informative) as personal ones in explaining cultural differences in psychological phenomena (e.g., Zou, Tam, Morris, Lee, Lau, & Chiu, 2009).

These situations were then coded and analyzed to test the following hypotheses: Situations generated by American participants would tend to focus on the individual more than would those generated by Turkish participants, whereas situations generated by Turkish participants would tend to involve close others, social groups, and an audience more than would those generated by American participants. We also examined the extent to which the situations generated by members of the two societies focused on different types of situations.

In Study 2, we asked a new group of participants to evaluate a random sample of situations generated by both groups in Study 1. Specifically, we asked participants to imagine themselves in each situation and to evaluate how these experiences would impact their own feelings about themselves, their close others’ feelings about themselves, and acquaintances’ feelings about their family. We hypothesized that Turkish participants would evaluate situations as having greater impact on themselves, their close others’ evaluation of themselves, and acquaintances’ feelings about their family than would Americans. Given the collectivist nature of Turkish society, we also predicted that Turkish participants would evaluate situations as having similar impact on their own feelings and on the feelings of close others and as having less impact on acquaintances’ feelings about their family. Because of the individualist nature of American society, we hypothesized that Americans would evaluate situations as having more impact on their own feelings than on close others’ feelings or acquaintances’ feelings about their family. Finally, we tested the hypothesis that Turkish situations would foster more extreme responses in participants from both cultures than would American situations.

Study 1

In Study 1, we asked participants to list honor-relevant situations. These situations were coded to test the hypotheses that American situations would more likely focus on the individual than would Turkish situations, whereas Turkish situations would more likely involve close others, social groups, and an audience than would American situations. We also analyzed the content of the situations generated by both groups to determine whether Turkish and American participants focused on different types of situations in their descriptions.

Method

Participants and procedure

Undergraduate students from a public university in Istanbul, Turkey (n = 84, 56 women, one unstated, M _age = 20.44, SD = 1.36) and a public university in Northern United States who identified themselves to be of European American origin (n = 97, 48 women, M _age = 19.56, SD = 1.63) participated for course credit. Participants signed up for the study in groups of 5 to 10 and completed questionnaires that contained several open-ended questions about honor. As a warm-up exercise, we first asked participants to describe the meaning of honor. They then responded to one of the two following questions that were presented as part of a larger study on the meaning of honor: (a) “If someone wanted to attack/insult somebody else’s honor, what would be the most effective way to do so?” (b) “If someone wanted to enhance/increase somebody else’s honor, what would be the most effective way to do so?”

The instructions and questions were translated and back-translated by a team fluent in both Turkish and English. Two synonymous terms—onur and şeref—were used as Turkish translations of the English term honor.¹

Coding overview

Most situations generated in both cultural groups consisted of multiple meaningful units. They were first broken into independent units of analysis consisting of unique meaning statements. For example, the response “Accusing him of fraud and saying that he is a liar” was coded as consisting of two units (“accusing him of fraud” and “saying that he is a liar”). Two coders fluent in both Turkish and English worked together on identifying meaningful independent units. Each meaningful unit was then coded by two independent raters who were blind to the hypotheses for the coded dimensions.

Focus

This category refers to whose honor is attacked or enhanced and whether the situation involved a person’s honor by focusing on the person alone, his or her close others, or the person’s social groups. Situations were categorized as individual if the main target him- or herself was the person to whom the action was directed (e.g., “calling the person a liar”). Situations were categorized as relational if the action concerned a close other (e.g., “one’s brother wins an important national award”). Finally, situations were categorized as collective if the action was directed to a social group (e.g., “saying good things about the person’s university”). Kappas for the four categories of situations (TR vs. US and Attack vs. Enhance) ranged from .76 to .97; disagreements were resolved by discussion.

Audience

This code refers to whether or not an audience to witness the situation was explicitly indicated in the units. Audiences were coded for relational or collective features. For example, the unit “humiliating the person in front of his or her family” indicates the presence of an audience consisting of close others and was therefore coded as relational. The unit “praising the person in front of a classroom” refers to an audience consisting of a social group and was coded as collective. Kappas for the four categories of situations (TR vs. US and Attack vs. Enhance) ranged from .51 to .80; again, disagreements were resolved by discussion.

Types of situations

In addition to coding each statement for focus and audience, all the situations were also coded into content categories. The first two authors generated 12 categories after carefully examining all the situations (see Table 1). Three coders assigned each situation to one category; one bilingual research assistant coded all the items and the other coders coded either the Turkish data or the American data. Kappas for the categories of situations ranged from .74 to .87. Disagreements were resolved by discussion.

Table 1.

The Coding Scheme Categories Employed to Content-Analyze Situations Generated in Study 1^a

Honor-Attacking Situations	Description (Example)	TR %	US %	χ²(7) = 81.08, p < .001
Humiliation	Calling someone names, insulting, explicitly humiliating (disgrace the name of someone’s parents or family)	28.5	31.4	χ²(1) < 1, ns
False accusations	Being falsely accused for acts one has not committed and being subjected to unfair treatments one does not deserve (accuse someone of cheating)	34.3	4.4	χ²(1) = 39.32, p < .001
Sexual/physical attack	Physically attacking someone (e.g., slapping, hitting), sexually attacking someone (molestation, sexual harassment) (sexually harass someone)	9.5	3.6	χ²(1) = 3.81, p = .05
Challenge/criticism	Challenging someone, criticizing or attacking one’s ideas or character features (attack their views and morals)	6.6	29.2	χ²(1) < 23.9, p< .001
Negative character	Lacking integrity, consistency, and stability in ones’ actions (prove that the person has the wrong motives)	0.7	7.3	χ²(1) = 7.67, p < .01
Achievement/negative	Not being able to achieve/accomplish as expected or where the person is outperformed by others (out-perform the person in an area that is important to them)	0	5.1	χ²(1) = 5.28, p < .03
Revealing negative behaviors of a person	Pointing out someone’s negative behaviors (catch them in a lie about a serious matter)	10.2	17.5	χ²(1) = 3.06, p = .08
Honor-Enhancing Situations	Description (Example)	TR %	US %	χ²(5) = 33.6, p < .001
Praise	Praising someone’s qualities, showing admiration and appreciation (praise someone in words or with actions)	39.6	26.9	χ²(1) = 3.81, p = .05
Achievement/positive	Achieving, accomplishing positive outcomes/being rewarded for them (make the honor roll at school for high grades)	20.8	3.8	χ²(1) = 13.84, p < .001
Positive character	Showing integrity, consistency, and stability in ones’ actions (be an honest person)	13.2	8.7	χ²(1) < 2.0, ns
Helping	Helping other people, serving in the community (encourage them to do voluntary community service)	8.5	33.7	χ²(1) = 20.07, p < .001
Revealing positive characteristics and behaviors of a person	Pointing out someone’s positive behaviors, attributes, and characteristics (make them look like a great person in how they fight for what they believe in)	13.2	18.3	χ²(1) < 2.0, ns

Only the most common categories are listed; hence, the percentage of honor-enhancing and honor-attacking categories do not add up to exactly 100%. In addition, the “other” category was not included in the table but was part of the overall chi-square computation.

Results and Discussion

Participants generated a total number of 542 meaningful units, 118 of which were not relevant for the purposes of the study (e.g., “in my opinion,” “most people would do the following”) and therefore not further coded. Using the remaining 424 meaningful units, we subjected the average number of units generated by participants to a Culture (TR vs. US) × Gender (Women vs. Men) × Type of Question (Enhance vs. Attack) ANOVA. On average, Turkish participants generated more units (M = 2.81, SD = 1.82) than did American participants (M = 2.03, SD = 1.37), F(1, 172) = 8.83, p < .01, Cohen’s d = .48.

Focus

We hypothesized that situations generated by American participants would tend to focus more on the individual, whereas situations generated by Turkish participants would be more likely than American situations to focus on close others and social groups. To test this, we compared the percentage of situations coded as individual, relational, or collective across the two groups. In support of our hypothesis, an examination of honor-attacking units revealed that a greater number of American units involved a reference to an individual target (95%), compared to 88.4% of meaning units generated by Turkish participants, χ²(1) = 4.05, p = .04, Cramér’s φ = .15, and a greater number of Turkish units involved a reference to a relational target (e.g., sister) (11.6%) compared to 3.5% of American units, χ²(1) = 6.49, p = .01, Cramér’s φ = .19. Percentage of units involving a reference to a collective target did not differ across the two cultural groups (TR: 0%, US: 1.4%, χ²= 2.21, p = .16).

An examination of honor-enhancing meaning units revealed that the vast majority of both Turkish (98.2%) and American (94.7%) units focused on the individual, χ²(1) = 2.22, p = .14. A slightly greater percentage of American units (5.3%) focused on close others than did Turkish units (1.2%), χ²(1) = 3.55, p = .06, Cramér’s φ = .14. The percentage of American (0%) and Turkish (.6%) units focusing on social groups did not differ, χ² < 1².

Audience

To test the hypothesis that Turkish situations would involve witnesses to the described event more than would American situations, we compared the percentage of times the situations involved a reference to relational or collective audiences. In support of our hypothesis, a greater number of Turkish honor-attacking situations involved a reference to an audience (25.3%), compared to 4.7% of situations generated by American participants, χ²(1) = 24.79, p < .001, Cramér’s φ = .37. Of the units generated by Turkish participants, 7.8% involved a reference to a relational audience consisting of a close other (e.g., mother) or a group of close others (e.g., family) compared to 0.7% in the American sample, χ²(1) = 9.28, p = .002, Cramér’s φ = .23. Similarly, 17.5% of Turkish units involved a reference to a social group (e.g., classroom or sports team), compared to 4.1% in the American sample, χ²(1) = 14.09, p < .001, Cramér’s φ = .28.

Examination of the honor-enhancing situations revealed that only a small percentage of such situations involved an audience; this did not differ across the two cultural groups (TR: 2.9%, US: 4.7%, χ²< 1). The percentage of Turkish and the American units involving a relational or collective audience did also not differ (relational: TR: 0%, US: 0.5%, χ²< 1; collective: TR: 2.4%, US: 4.7%, χ² = 1.27, p = .26).³

Content analysis

We examined situation codes separately for attack and enhance situations (see Table 1). For both types of analyses, the overall χ² was significant, χ²(7) = 81.08, p < .001, Cramér’s φ = .25 for attack items and χ²(5) = 33.6, p < .001, Cramér’s φ = .16 for the enhance items. As shown in Table 1, there were both similarities and significant differences in the frequency of several types of situations. First, for attack situations, both groups similarly generated a relatively large proportion of situations that focused on intentional humiliation of the target (28.5% TR, 31.4% US). However, important differences emerged in other categories. Compared to American participants, Turkish participants generated more than 8 times as many statements that referred to false accusations and unfair treatment. Turkish participants were also almost 3 times more likely to generate statements that referred to physical or sexual attacks. In contrast, American participants generated almost 5 times more statements that focused on challenging or criticizing a person’s ideas or character and generated almost 10 times more situations that focused on the individual’s lack of integrity or consistency.⁴

For the honor-enhancing situations, there were similarities in the percentage of situations generated by Turkish and American participants that involved showing integrity or consistency in one’s behaviors, and in situations that involved the revelation of a person’s positive attributes and behavior. Compared to Americans, however, the Turkish participants generated approximately 50% more situations that involved a reference to praise, admiration, or appreciation of someone’s qualities or actions; they generated more than 5 times more situations that referred to achievement than did the American participants. Americans, in contrast, generated approximately 4 times as many situations that referred to helping others or doing community service than did the Turkish participants.⁵

Is there a common conceptual core when Americans and Turkish participants think of honor-relevant situations? One way to consider this is to compute the sum of the smallest of the two percentages for each category; this represents the agreement between the two groups in the representativeness of each type of situation. This sum totals 54% of the set of attack situations and 61.1% of the set of enhancement situations. Both Americans and Turkish people frequently recalled honor-attacking situations that involved insults or calling another person names as effective ways to harm another person’s honor. There was considerable agreement, too, that a person’s honor can be enhanced through praise and appreciation. For both attack and enhancement situations, however, there was also considerable disagreement: Turkish participants focused more than Americans on relatively extreme attack situations (false accusations and physical or sexual attacks) and achievement-oriented enhancing situations, whereas Americans generated more attacks on a person’s views and morality and situations where a person enhances honor by engaging in service and help to others (also see Pratt Ewing, 2008). Thus, this examination of situations that involve attacks to and enhancements of honor shows that there are elements of honor that are shared by these two cultural groups as well as culturally unique elements. We also see that, despite the fact that honor is not a very salient concept in societies characterized as dignity cultures, individuals are able to articulate how honor is lived and experienced by providing relevant situations.

In summary, we found the expected cultural differences in honor-attacking situations: Situations generated by American participants focused on the individual more than did the situations generated by Turkish participants, whereas situations generated by Turkish participants focused on the target person’s close others more than did the situations generated by American participants. Turkish situations were also more likely than American situations to involve a relational or a collective audience. No cultural differences were observed in the focus or audience for honor-enhancing situations. We also observed that although there were some similarities in the kinds of situations that Turkish and American participants identified as honor-attacking or honor-enhancing, the two cultural groups tended to also have different views as to which kinds of situations can potentially have an effect on one’s honor.

Both Turkish and American participants generated far more individual situations than relational or collective situations. This finding may be due in part to the framing of the question. Participants were asked to describe the best way someone could enhance/attack someone else’s honor, which focused attention on the individual. Furthermore, one could argue that the questions should have focused on how a person might lose or gain honor for himself/herself. Although this framing would certainly reveal interesting cultural conceptions of honor, it would not elicit situations as clearly as did the wording used in the current study. Instead, responses would be more likely to focus on a person’s behaviors, attributes, and character. Moreover, this framing would fail to elicit situations in which one’s honor is affected by other people’s behavior, rather than one’s own (such as the situations that include an audience). In Study 2, we focus on responses to a randomly selected set of situations generated in Study 1.

Study 2

Study 2 was designed to examine people’s views of the impact of honor-relevant situations on different targets. To that aim, we randomly sampled honor-attacking and honor-enhancing situations from the pool of situations generated in Study 1. We subsequently asked a new group of participants to evaluate how these situations would impact their own feelings, their family’s feelings, and acquaintances’ feelings about their family if they found themselves to be the target of these situations. We hypothesized that because Turkish attack situations referred to more extreme events (such as personal attack and false accusations), they would tend to elicit stronger reactions than the American situations.

Method

Participants and procedure

Participants were Turkish undergraduate students from a public university in Istanbul, Turkey (n = 81, 55 women, M _age = 20.04, SD = 1.54) and European American undergraduate students from a public university in Northern United States (n = 76, 40 women, M _age = 19.95, SD = 1.75) who were recruited through departmental subject pools in return for course credit. Participants signed up for the study in groups of 5 to 10.

Selection of situations

All single-unit situations generated in Study 1 were listed. After situations that were culture-specific (e.g., kissing one’s hand, which indicates respect in Turkey) were removed, the remaining list was categorized by question type (enhance vs. attack), gender (female vs. male), and cultural origin (Turkey vs. United States) of the participants who generated them. From each category, 20 situations were randomly selected, resulting in a total of 160 situations. Selected situations and instructions were translated and back-translated by two members of the research team fluent in both English and Turkish.

Materials and procedure

To make the task of responding more manageable, we divided the sample of 160 situations into two sets of 80 each, which allowed us to test our hypotheses using a larger pool of situations. Each participant evaluated one set of 80 randomly selected situations. First, they were instructed to visualize themselves as the target in each situation and respond to the question: “How would this situation make you feel about yourself?” (Self). After evaluating all 80 items, they read them again and responded to the following two questions: “If you were in this situation, how would your family and friends feel about themselves?” (close others) and “If you were in this situation, how would others feel about your family?” (acquaintances, who were defined as individuals known to participants excluding family members or very close friends). The last two (close others and acquaintances) were counterbalanced across participants. Participants rated them using a 7-point Likert-type scale (1 = extremely negatively to 7 = extremely positively). The situations were presented in different random orders for each target, and a forwards and backwards version of each order was created, which resulted in 8 different item sets.

Results and Discussion

We analyzed the data in two different ways following Kitayama et al. (1997) and Morling et al. (2002). First, we treated each participant as the unit of analysis. We computed means for each participant across situations that differed by type (enhance vs. attack), situation gender (female- vs. male-generated situations), and situation cultural origin (Turkey- vs. U.S.-generated situations), which comprised the within-subject variables. The between-subject variables were participants’ cultural background (Turkish vs. European American), gender (female vs. male), and item set. The F tests computed using this strategy will be referred to as F_p. Second, we treated situations as the unit of analysis. We computed means separately for each situation with participant culture and participant gender used as within-subjects variables. The between-subject variables were situation type (enhance vs. attack), situation gender (female- vs. male-generated situations), situation cultural origin (Turkey- vs. U.S.-generated situations), and item set. The F tests computed using this strategy will be referred to as F_s. Using the two types of analyses allowed us to examine effects from the perspective of participants and situations.

Below we report only those omnibus effects that reached statistical significance. Post hoc contrasts are conducted using simple effects analyses. Before we examined evaluations of situations, we recoded the 7-point Likert-type scale to range from −3 (extremely negatively) to +3 (extremely positively) with a midpoint of 0 for scores indicating that the situation was perceived to have neither a negative nor a positive impact.

The initial analyses conducted with all the within- and between-subject variables revealed no significant results involving item set in any main and interaction effects, suggesting that results do not depend on the type of situations included in a specific item set and can be generalized across the entire situation pool. Consequently, this variable was not included in the analyses reported below and will not be discussed further. For simplicity and a more meaningful test of hypotheses, below we report the analyses separately for attack and enhance situations.

Evaluations of honor-attacking situations

Recall that for each evaluation, the participants were asked to imagine that the situation has occurred to themselves, and they estimated how this event would affect their own feelings, their family’s feelings, and their acquaintances’ feelings about the participant’s family. An overall examination of situation evaluations for the three different targets (self, family, and acquaintances) revealed that participants provided the most negative ratings when evaluating the impact of situations on their own feelings (M = −1.73) and the least negative ratings when evaluating acquaintances’ feelings about their family (M = −1.32), with ratings of the evaluation of close others’ feelings about themselves falling in between (M = −1.55), F_p(2, 304) = 33.34, p < .001, η² =.17 (all ps < .01, .33 ≤ Cohen ds ≤ .82), F_s(2, 237) = 17.21, p < .001, η² =.15 (all ps < .05, .38 ≤ Cohen ds ≤ .91).⁶ This analysis also revealed a significant Target × Participant Culture interaction, F_p(2, 304) = 9.07, p < .001, η² = .046, F_s(2, 237) = 19.90, p < .001, η² =.14, indicating that cultural differences in situation evaluations depended on the target of evaluation. Below we examine the situation evaluations for each target first, followed by comparisons across targets where we will unfold the Target × Participant Culture interaction.

When evaluating situations with regard to how they would make participants feel about themselves, overall Turkish participants (M = −1.80) reported more negative feelings than did American participants (M = −1.64), F_p(1, 153) = 8.74, p < .01, d = .30, F_s(1, 79) = 5.27, p < .05, d = .56. In support of the prediction that Turkish situations would foster more extreme responses than would American situations, Turkish situations (M = −1.93) were rated as impacting one’s feelings more negatively than were American situations (M = −1.52), F_p(1, 153) = 165.81, p < .001, d = .71, F_s(1, 78) = 19.72, p < .001, d = .15 (see Figure 1). These main effects were qualified by a significant Participant Culture × Situation Culture interaction, F_p(1, 153) = 67.36, p < .001, η² = .17, F_s(1, 78) = 22.74, p < .001, η² = .21. Unfolding the two-way interaction, we found that although Turkish participants (M = −2.13) rated their feelings about themselves as more negative than did Americans (M = −1.72) in response to Turkish situations, p_p < .001, d = .73, p_s < .001, d = .93, they (M = −1.47) did not differ from Americans (M = −1.57) in response to American situations, p_p = .14, d = .17, p_s = .13, d = .21. Thus, in support of our hypothesis, Turkish participants evaluated situations as having greater impact on their own feelings than did Americans, but only when evaluating Turkish situations.

Figure 1.

Evaluations of Honor-Attacking Situations by Target, Situation Culture, and Participant Culture

When participants were asked to imagine themselves in the situation and to report how close others would feel about themselves as a result, the responses showed a similar pattern. Overall, Turkish participants (M = −1.70) reported more negative feelings than did American participants (M = −1.39), F_p(1, 153) = 6.16, p = .014, η² = .04, F_s(1, 79) = 36.64, p < .001, η² = .32. In support of the hypothesis concerning the greater potency of Turkish situations compared to American situations, Turkish situations (M = −1.76) were rated as impacting close others’ feelings about themselves more negatively than were American situations (M = −1.34), F_p(1, 153) = 195.09, p < .001, η² = .53, F_s(1, 78) = 19.72, p < .001, η² = .21. These main effects were qualified by a significant Participant Culture × Situation Culture interaction, F_p(1, 153) = 22.02, p < .001, η² = .53, F_s(1, 78) = 9.67, p < .01, η² = .08. Unfolding this interaction, we found that Turkish participants (M = −1.97) rated close others’ feelings about themselves more negatively than did Americans (M = −1.52) when evaluating Turkish situations, p_p < .001, d = .63, p_s < .001, d = .95, but they (M = −1.42) did not differ from Americans (M = −1.26) when evaluating American situations, p_p = .19, d = .24, p_s = .03, d = .27. Thus, in support of our hypothesis, Turkish participants rated the situations to have greater impact on their family’s feelings of themselves, but only when evaluating Turkish situations.

The examination of participants’ evaluations of acquaintances’ feelings about their family if the participants found themselves in the given situations revealed no significant effect of participant culture, but a significant situation culture effect, F_p(1, 153) = 78.94, p < .001, η² = .33, F_s(1, 79) = 18.70, p < .001, η² = .19. Turkish situations (M = −1.47) were rated as having more negative impact on acquaintances’ feelings about one’s family than were American situations (M = −1.17), once again supporting our hypothesis. This main effect was qualified by a significant Situation Culture × Participant Culture interaction, F_p(1, 152) = 5.67, p = .019, η² = .02, F_s(1, 78) = 4.77, p = .03, η² = .05.⁷ Decomposing the two-way interaction, we found that Turkish (M = −1.47) and American (M = −1.47) participants rated acquaintances’ feelings about their family in response to Turkish situations equally negatively (p_p = .62, d = 0, p_s = .12, d = .21), but Turkish participants (M = −1.08) rated acquaintances’ feelings less negatively than did American participants (M = −1.27) in response to American situations (p_p = .05, d = .29, p_s < .001, d = .47). These findings fail to support the hypothesis that Turkish participants would evaluate situations as having more impact on acquaintances’ feelings about their family.

As shown in Figure 1, the decomposition of the significant Target × Participant Culture interaction showed that the pattern of evaluations of the effects of the honor-attacking situations on the three targets was different for Turkish and American participants. Among Turkish participants, the ratings of the effects of honor-attacking situations on their own feelings and their family’s feelings about themselves were not significantly different (p = .17, d = .31), but their ratings of the effects of the situations on acquaintances’ feelings about their family were significantly less negative than their ratings on their own feelings and their family’s feelings about themselves (both ps < .001, d = .95 and d = .72, respectively). In contrast, American participants’ ratings of the situations for the self were significantly more negative than ratings of one’s family’s feelings (p < .001, d = .40) or ratings of acquaintances’ feelings about one’s family (p < .01, d = .45). The two latter ratings did not differ (p = .76, d = .04). These findings support the prediction that Turkish participants would evaluate situations as having similar impact on their own feelings and on the feelings of close others but as having less impact on acquaintances’ feelings about their family, whereas Americans would evaluate situations as having more impact on their own feelings than on close others’ feelings or feelings of acquaintances about their family.

Evaluations of honor-enhancing situations

Replicating the pattern of evaluation of honor-attacking situations, participants evaluated the honor-enhancing situations to have the most positive impact on their own feelings (M = 1.90) and the least positive impact on acquaintances’ feelings about their family (M = 1.69), with the impact on close others’ feelings about themselves falling in between (M = 1.79), F_p(2, 306) = 8.98, p < .001, η² = .05 (all ps < .05, .16 ≤ ds ≤ .37), F_s(2, 237) = 7.31, p < .01, η² = .06 (all ps < .05, .21 ≤ ds ≤ .53).⁸ This analysis also revealed a significant Target × Participant Culture interaction, F_p(2, 306) = 7.10, p = .001, η² = .04, F_s(2, 237) = 18.51, p < .001, η² = .13, indicating that cultural differences in situation evaluations depended on the target of evaluation.

When evaluating situations with regard to how they would make participants feel about themselves, Turkish situations (M = 1.96) were rated as impacting one’s feelings more positively than American situations (M = 1.84), F_p(1, 153) = 17.16, p < .001, η² = .09, F_s(1, 78) = 4.78, p < .05, η² = .06, supporting the prediction that Turkish situations would foster more extreme responses than American situations. No differences in ratings by Turkish or American participants were observed (F_p < 1).

When asked to imagine themselves in the situation and to report how close others would feel about themselves as a result, the pattern of findings mirrored the findings in honor-attacking situations. Overall, Turkish participants (M = 1.97) reported more positive affect than did American participants (M = 1.62), F_p(1, 153) = 8.23, p < .01, η² = .05, F_s(1, 79) = 78.39, p < .001, η² = .72. In support of our hypothesis, Turkish situations (M = 1.89) were rated as impacting close others’ feelings more positively than were American situations (M = 1.70), F_p(1, 153) = 60.43, p < .001, η² = .26, F_s(1, 78) = 4.78, p = .03, η² = .50 (see Figure 2). These main effects were qualified by a significant Participant Culture × Situation Culture interaction, F_p(1, 153) = 18.69, p < .001, η² = .08, F_s(1, 78) = 11.77, p < .01, η² = .07. Whereas Turkish participants (M = 2.11) rated close others’ feelings about themselves significantly more positively than did Americans (M = 1.66) when evaluating Turkish situations (p_p < .001, d = .70, p_s < .01, d = .92), they (M = 1.82) differed from Americans (M = 1.57) only marginally significantly when evaluating American situations (p_p = .08, d = .35, p_s = .39, d = .52). Overall, these findings support the hypothesis that Turkish participants would evaluate situations as having greater impact on close others’ evaluations of themselves than would American participants.

Figure 2.

Evaluations of Honor-Enhancing Situations by Target, Situation Culture, and Participant Culture

The examination of evaluations of acquaintances’ feelings about the participant’s family if the participants found themselves in the given situations revealed no significant effect of participant culture but a significant situation culture effect, F_p(1, 153) = 63.22, p < .001, η² = .27, F_s(1, 78) = 5.37, p = .02, η² = .06, with Turkish situations (M = 1.79) rated as having more positive impact on acquaintances’ feelings about one’s family than American situations (M = 1.59), again supporting our hypothesis. This main effect was qualified by a significant Situation Culture × Participant Culture interaction, F_p(1, 152) = 17.78, p < .001, η² = .08, F_s(1, 78) = 9.16, p < .01, η² = .11. Decomposing the two-way interaction, we found that whereas Turkish (M = 1.59) and American (M = 1.59) participants rated acquaintances’ feelings about their family in response to American situations equally positively (p_p = .48, d = 0, p_s < .05, d = .24), the two groups differed on their ratings in response to Turkish situations: Turkish participants (M = 1.88) rated acquaintances’ feelings more positively than did American participants (M = 1.69), although this difference failed to reach significance (p_p = .10, d = .31, p_s = .07, d = 28). These findings fail to support the hypothesis that Turkish participants would rate the impact of honor-enhancing situations on acquaintances’ feelings about their family to be greater than American participants.

As shown in Figure 2, the decomposition of the significant Target × Participant Culture interaction showed that the pattern of evaluations of the effects of honor-enhancing situations on the three targets was different for the Turkish and American participants and provided support for our hypothesis. Among Turkish participants, the ratings of the effects of the situations on their own feelings and their families’ feelings about themselves were not significantly different (p = .31, d = .11), but their ratings of the effects of the situation on acquaintances’ feelings about their family was much less positive than the ratings of the effects of the situations on their own feelings and their families’ feelings about themselves (both ps < .05, d = .28 and d = .40, respectively). In contrast, American participants’ ratings of the situations for the self were significantly more positive than ratings of their family’s feelings or ratings of acquaintances’ feelings about one’s family (both ps < .001, d = .47 and d = .48, respectively). The latter two ratings did not differ (p = .71, d = .03).

Summary

When evaluating honor-attacking situations, Turkish participants evaluated situations as having greater impact on themselves and close others’ feelings about themselves than did American participants. When evaluating honor-enhancing situations, this pattern held only for close others’ feelings about themselves. No cultural differences were observed in evaluations of acquaintances’ feelings about one’s family for both honor-attacking and honor-enhancing situations. This unexpected finding may be due to the location of data collection in Turkey. Istanbul, a large urban center, may not afford close enough relationships to cause concern regarding how acquaintances might think of one’s close others. Also, for participants who moved to Istanbul from smaller communities, responding to the questions in a setting where few others might know their families may have muted the effects.

We also found, in line with our predictions, that Turkish participants estimated that the situations would have a similar impact on their own feelings and the feelings of close others about themselves, but less impact on acquaintances’ feelings about their family. Americans, in contrast, estimated that the situations would have a more extreme impact on their own feelings than on the feelings of close others or on others’ feelings about their family; estimates for the latter two did not differ. Finally, as expected, both American and Turkish participants evaluated the Turkish-generated situations to have more extreme impact on all target ratings (self, close others, and acquaintances), compared to the American-generated situations.

General Discussion

Although individuals in different cultural worlds all may have a sense of honor, we predicted that how honor is lived and experienced would differ from culture to culture. By employing a situation sampling method we investigated situations that are viewed as honor-attacking or honor-enhancing in Northern American and Turkish cultural worlds and the responses these situations afford.

We first examined the characteristics of honor-relevant situations by asking participants to list situations that would be the most effective ways to attack or enhance someone’s honor. When situations concerned attacks to honor, American-generated situations focused on the individual more than did Turkish-generated situations, which included more episodes that focused on the target person’s close others. Turkish honor-attacking situations were also more likely than American situations to involve a relational or a collective audience. These findings are congruent with the culturally variable forms of honor documented in previous studies. Western individualistic settings (Dutch, Northern United States) tend to experience honor as primarily limited to the individual and his or her own characteristics, whereas collectivistic honor cultures (Spanish, Turkish) tend to experience honor as related to the individual as well as close others and to how the individual is viewed by other people (Rodriguez Mosquera et al., 2000, 2002a, 2002b). Even so, both Turkish and American participants generated primarily individual-focused situations, perhaps in response to the individual-focused nature of the prompt.

It is notable that in Study 1, cultural differences in the focus of the event and the presence of an audience were found in honor-attacking situations but not in honor-enhancing situations. This discrepancy may be a function of the fragile nature of honor in honor cultures. In such cultures, honor is easy to lose and individuals are socialized to protect their honor; they must prove themselves to avoid painful social consequences of losing honor (e.g., Peristiany, 1965). Thus, members of honor cultures may develop a greater sensitivity to potential threats to honor and to the consequences for close others in a variety of situations, resulting in more vivid and salient representations of such situations than for members of nonhonor cultures. In addition, the wording of the question that was used to elicit honor-enhancing situations (“If someone wanted to enhance/increase somebody else’s honor, what would be the most effective way to do so?”) may have also brought to the minds of these college students the ways that individuals are often honored in academic contexts—due to their own personal behavior and achievement.

Content analysis of the situations revealed that members of both groups tended to mention honor-attacking situations that involved an insult or explicit humiliation of another person with about the same frequency, but other types of situations were mentioned with different frequencies by the two groups. Most importantly, the Turkish participants were much more likely than the Americans to mention situations where one has been falsely accused by another person or situations in which one is physically or sexually attacked. Americans, in contrast, were more likely than the Turkish participants to mention verbal attacks on a person’s viewpoints or character. American situations may be less extreme than Turkish situations because, for Americans, one’s honor is primarily impacted by one’s own behavior, not by others’ behavior. These data suggest that, for Americans, one’s honor is primarily threatened by what one does or is (e.g., immoral behavior or having bad character) or fails to do (e.g., being outperformed by another person). This differing conception of honor is also reflected in the types of honor-enhancing situations generated by Turkish and American participants. For Turkish participants, the largest proportion of situations involved being praised or appreciated by others, whereas for Americans, the largest proportion involved helping and serving others. Again, this may reflect the perspective that in Turkey, one’s honor derives from both one’s own self-appraisals and the appraisals of others, whereas for Americans, one’s honor is primarily due to one’s own character and behavior, not by the behavior of others. These findings are in line with the features of the cultural syndromes of dignity and honor as discussed by Leung and Cohen (2011) such that members of a dignity culture (Northern Americans) were more likely than members of an honor culture (Turkish) to think of honor as a characteristic that belongs primarily to the individual and is not defined by others. Thus, the common core of honor across these two cultures may be the person’s own self-appraisals of worth, but the appraisals of others represent a culturally variable component.

In Study 2, we examined the responses afforded by a randomly selected subset of situations generated in Study 1 and found that Turkish participants, compared to American participants, rated their own feelings and close others’ feelings about themselves more extremely, especially when they imagined themselves in situations generated by their Turkish peers. In parallel to the findings from Study 1, this pattern was observed more strongly for honor-attacking than honor-enhancing situations, which suggests that Turkish participants were more sensitive to the self- and close-other-relevant implications of honor-threatening compared to honor-enhancing situations.

Turkish participants also rated the implications of honor-relevant situations similarly for self and family. This finding suggests that the impact of honor situations on oneself is likely to spill over and generate similar consequences for close others in the Turkish cultural settings, whereas the primary impact of such situations is on the individual him/herself in the American cultural settings, with close others’ feelings affected to a lesser degree. Thus, honor is likely to be viewed as a shared commodity in the Turkish cultural group regardless of whether honor is enhanced or attacked. These findings are consistent with cultural differences in self-construals: In Turkey, where interdependent, collective self-construals dominate, events that affect the individual will reverberate throughout the group. In contrast, given the independent self-construals dominate in Northern U.S. cultural contexts, events that affect the individual have limited impact on others. Although other research has found that honor threats can have implications for close others in collectivist contexts (e.g., a wife’s unfaithfulness impacts her husband’s honor among Latinos in the United States, Vandello & Cohen, 2003), this study shows that this spillover occurs for a wide range of situations, not just those related to sexuality, among members of a very different honor culture.

Study 2 also revealed that, as predicted, honor-relevant situations generated by Turkish participants, compared to those generated by American participants, were evaluated by both Turkish and American participants as having a greater impact on all evaluated targets. This may be due to their greater coverage of more extreme negative situations that were not typically generated by Americans (e.g., false accusations, sexual and physical attack as observed in Study 1). Turkish honor-enhancing situations were more likely to refer to praise or admiration of others, which may have enhanced not only a personal sense of worth but also a feeling of being publically valued. Thus, this finding reveals that honor is implicated by more extreme types of situations in the Turkish cultural worlds.

It is puzzling that there were no cultural differences in the participants’ evaluations of how each of these situations, if they had occurred to the participant, would affect acquaintances’ views of their families. As mentioned above, this question may be seen as irrelevant to Turkish students studying away from home in a very large urban city. In future studies, a focus on normative reactions to a person who experiences each situation (e.g., “How would other people feel about a person [or a person’s family] if the person were in this situation?”) may reveal the expected pattern of greater importance of the individual’s public reputation in Turkey than in the United States (Zou et al., 2009).

Finally, the situation sampling method allowed us to examine the response patterns from the perspective of both participants and situations. For the most part, similar patterns were observed in both types of analyses, suggesting that the effects are not only psychological but are also found in the composition of social situations. This finding indicates that persons and situations are fundamentally connected, providing support to the constructivist approach (e.g., Kitayama et al., 1997; Lewin, 1936). By introducing modifications to the earlier applications of the situation sampling method, we also demonstrated that the situation sampling method is a flexible tool that can be used in a variety of ways to examine how everyday events sculpt unique cultural patterns of behavior.

Concluding Comments

In the present work, we examined the construct of honor in the Northern region of the United States and in Turkey, a society which has thus far received relatively little attention but which may serve as a gateway to understanding the psychology of Middle Eastern societies. We choose northern U.S. students in order to establish a baseline of behavior in a nonhonor society (Cohen et al., 1996); our primary concern was to distinguish the conception of honor in a traditional honor culture (Turkey) from that in a nonhonor, dignity culture (northern United States). Further research is needed to seek to distinguish the forms of honor displayed in the U.S. South and in Turkey (two honor cultures that differ in many ways). Furthermore, our research went beyond previous studies by examining not only threats to honor but also ways in which honor may be enhanced. For example, understanding the relational nature of honor in Turkey helps Westerners better understand the mother’s reaction to the son’s academic success described in the quote from Mesquita (2001) mentioned in the introduction. Both Turkish and American students are likely to respond to high academic success with pride and enhanced self-esteem, but it is less socially acceptable for an American mother to boast about it to her friends and family. Threats to honor and the possibility of aggression as a result have received much more attention than enhancement, but it is important to have a complete picture of the ways concepts of honor may permeate social behavior.

We employed a modified situation sampling method (Kitayama et al., 1997; Morling et al., 2002) that allowed examination of the nature of honor-relevant situations and the responses afforded by these situations. As have others working within a cultural constructivist approach (see Kitayama et al., 1997), we showed that reflections of culturally different responses to honor can be found in specific social situations, which in turn have traces of different conceptions of honor. It is through individuals’ repeated exposure to and involvement in certain social situations that corresponding psychological responses and strategies develop. It is also through social situations and contexts that beliefs, ideals, and values are communicated and transmitted to future generations. This approach is consistent with a view of culture as residing not only within the individual (in terms of self-construals, values, and beliefs) but also as embodied in everyday situations, customs, practices, institutions, and common knowledge structures (Markus & Kitayama, 1994; Zou et al., 2009). This situational approach, which has thus far been used only in cross-cultural research, may prove especially useful in the development of cultural taxonomies of situations, as advocated by Reis (2008).

By examining characteristics of situations and responses afforded by these situations in honor and nonhonor cultures, we may be able to start understanding why John McCain chose prison over freedom and Recep Tayyip Erdogan left the Davos meeting so unexpectedly. When a great variety of situations and events are potentially relevant to a core value, such as honor in Turkey, then people will likely be very vigilant in these situations and respond quickly when such situations arise. Not to do so will cause harm not only to oneself and one’s own reputation but also to that of one’s family and close associates. Thus, from an American’s perspective, Turkish people may appear overly sensitive to perceived slights, both to themselves and their in-groups. This may explain a Westerner’s surprise when Erdogan walked out of the Davos’ meetings or a Westerner’s failure to understand a Turkish family’s vigorous response when one of its members has been dishonored. From a Turkish person’s perspective, Americans may appear insensitive to the effects of their behavior on others, and behaviors or actions that Americans view as minor, excusable, or within their rights may be perceived by Turkish people as an affront to another’s honor. Moreover, Turkish people may fail to understand Westerners who ignore the implications of their behavior for their in-groups. Better understanding of the cultural constructions of honor and the situations that reflect these constructions can help prevent cross-cultural misunderstandings and contribute to a more fully global psychology of interpersonal behavior.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dov Cohen, Yuri Miyamoto, and the social psychology group at the University of Essex for their valuable comments on the earlier versions of the manuscript.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The research reported here was supported by National Science Foundation Grant # 0646360 awarded to Susan Cross (PI) and Ayse K. Uskul (co-PI).

Notes

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