Disentangling Honor-Based Violence and Religion: The Differential Influence of Individual and Social Religious Practices and Fundamentalism on Support for Honor Killings in a Cross-National Sample of Muslims

Abstract

Religion is seen as one of the main causes of honor violence; yet, empirical studies investigating this purported relationship remain scarce. Therefore, we investigated how individual and social religious practices, religious fundamentalism, and demographic variables contribute to support for honor killings of women and men. We analyzed multinational face-to-face interview data of Muslims with a final sample size of N = 25,723. Using multilevel ordinal regression, we found that increased support for honor killings was strongly predicted by the frequency of mosque attendance, religious fundamentalism, a lower educational level, and living in a rural area. Conversely, gender and the frequency of private prayer did not significantly relate to support for honor killings. Thus, different aspects of religion have differential effects: Individual aspects of religious practice such as private prayer seem to be not significantly related to support for honor violence, whereas social aspects such as mosque attendance and religious fundamentalism strongly predict an increased support for honor killings.

Keywords

honor violence honor killings religiosity religious fundamentalism

Incidents of honor-based violence increasingly draw public attention, such as the fatal shooting of Kurdish German Hatun Sürücü or the beheading of Pakistani Sajjad Ahmed and Muawia Bibi. Especially, the contribution of religion to honor violence remains controversially discussed, with some arguing that religion has nothing to do with honor violence (e.g., Iftikhar, 2016), and others arguing that religion is at the core of the perpetuation of honor violence (e.g., Bruce, 2016). Yet, scientific studies empirically examining the putative link between religion and honor violence are lacking (Kulczycki & Windle, 2011). The current study strives to fill this gap in the literature by analyzing the contribution of several aspects of religiosity, including religious fundamentalism, to predict support of honor violence in a multinational sample of Muslims (N = 25,723; samples from Albania, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Niger, Pakistan, Palestinian Territories, Russia, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, and Turkey).

Honor-Based Violence

Honor-based violence encompasses all acts of violence committed against a family member with the justification to restore the family honor, which is perceived to have been violated (Elakkary et al., 2014). Perceived violations of the family honor can result from diverse acts that typically are perceived to challenge traditional value systems, such as adultery, premarital sexual or nonsexual relationships, resistance against a forced marriage or female genital mutilation, gay relationships, initiating a divorce, or being a victim of rape (Kulczycki & Windle, 2011).

There is a blurring line between honor-based and domestic violence; nevertheless, there are some key features of honor-based violence: Honor violence is carried out and justified with the aim to protect the family honor. In everyday usage, “honor” typically refers to a person’s individual prestige based on the person’s actions; “honor” as in “honor-based violence,” however, refers to a collective reputation of a family that depends on the adherence of family members to strict traditional moral guidelines (Doğan, 2016). Typically, men are expected to display “masculine virtues” such as dominance, power, control, and the will to defend their family, property, and reputation, whereas women are mainly expected to remain sexually pure and to be subservient. Accordingly, in the majority of cases, the male head of the family and/or significant other male family members become either actively involved in the perpetration of the act of violence or passively condone it. For example, in 2008, German Afghan Morsal Obeidi was lured by her cousin into a parking lot and then stabbed to death by her brother, because it was felt by her family that she embraced a Western lifestyle. Besides the fact that honor-based violence is mostly committed by men, female family members often equally support honor-based violence. It is assumed that honor violations lead to negative social consequences for the family, in that these actions reduce the family’s social status and heighten the risk of social shaming, exclusion, and isolation (Kulczycki & Windle, 2011) and thus decrease well-being and health (e.g., Beller & Wagner, 2018a; Beller & Wagner, 2018b). For example, regarding the honor killing of Basma al-Goul in 1999, her mother is quoted by the New York Times as saying (Jehl, 1999), “We were the most prominent family, with the best reputation . . . Then we were disgraced. Even my brother and his family stopped talking to us. No one would even visit us.” To restore the family honor, physical violence is used, punishing the offending family member (Cooney, 2014; Vandello & Cohen, 2003).

Honor killings represent the most aggressive and salient form of honor violence, in which the family honor is restored by killing the offending family member. Each year, it is estimated that there are at least 5,000 honor killings of women and girls (United Nations Population Fund, 2000). However, the given number of honor killings is likely to be inaccurate and to severely underestimate the true prevalence (Chesler, 2010): Statistics about the incidence of honor killings are not systematically collected by countries, and as such, no official national estimates of the prevalence of honor killings exist. In addition, honor killings might often be camouflaged as, for example, suicides, accidents, or disappearances (Wikan, 2008). Finally, there are no estimates of the prevalence of boys and men as victims of honor killings, although it is generally assumed that honor killings of males are not as prevalent as those of females. In one of the few studies that systematically collected data on honor killings, Oberwittler and Kasselt (2011) found that, in Germany, between 1996 and 2005, 43% of the victims of honor killings were male. The majority of these were extramarital lovers of a female family member. Apart from that, the percentage of male victims of honor killings is estimated to be about 7% worldwide (Steinke, 2013).

Honor killings have also been present throughout history and across countries. For example, in ancient Rome, men were allowed in certain circumstances to kill their adulterous wives and daughters (Edwards, 2002). Today, most honor killings are reported from majorly Islamic regions in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia (Kulczycki & Windle, 2011), but honor violence also occurs in other cultures (for a recent study of honor violence in the United States, see Brown, Baughman, & Carvallo, 2018). For example, until 1981, Article 587 of the Italian penalty code law provided mitigating circumstances for honor killings:

He who causes the death of a spouse, daughter, or sister upon discovering her in illegitimate carnal relations and in the heat of passion caused by the offense to his honor or that of his family will be sentenced to three to seven years. The same sentence shall apply to whom, in the above circumstances, causes the death of the person involved in illegitimate carnal relations with his spouse, daughter, or sister. (see e.g., Welchman & Hossain, 2005)

Thus, honor violence, and especially honor killings, constitutes a prevalent threat to human health and well-being around the world (Bhanbhro, de Chavez, & Lusambili, 2016).

Religion as a Predictor of Honor Violence

Myriad predictors of honor violence have been analyzed (see for reviews, for example, Bhanbhro et al., 2016; Elakkary et al., 2014; Kulczycki & Windle, 2011; Oberwittler & Kasselt, 2011) but most controversially discussed has been the contribution of religion. The public views honor violence as being rooted in religion (Korteweg & Yurdakul, 2009), and, indeed, religion establishes criteria for rightness and wrongness and, thus, might influence attitudes and behavior in conflict situations. From a theological perspective, some have argued that parts of the Bible or the Quran may be interpreted as endorsing honor violence (e.g., Spencer, 2013): Taken literally, certain texts may seem to affirm that women are inferior and must obey men and that killing for honor is justified (e.g., in the Bible Leviticus 21:9; Ephesians 5:22-24; in the Quran 4:15, 4:34). Thus, interpreting parts of the Bible or the Quran selectively and without considering their sociohistorical context might foster support for honor violence.

Hence, religious fundamentalism—an attitude of certainty as to the ultimate truth of one’s religious beliefs (Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 1992, 2004)—might also increase support for honor violence (for a contrasting finding, see Beller & Kröger, 2018b). In accordance with terror management theory (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986), religious fundamentalist beliefs might protect people from uncertainty and existential fear; however, when the fundamentalist worldview is challenged, people, who would not normally condone violence, might be prone to support honor violence to mitigate these threats to their worldview. Empirically, several studies suggested that religious fundamentalism might indeed be associated with increased violent attitudes (e.g., Beller, 2017; Beller & Kröger, 2018a; Beller, Kröger, & Kliem, 2021; McCleary, Quillivan, Foster, & Williams, 2011). For example, Williamson and Hood (2014) confronted participants with three scenarios that presented varied threats to the participants’ worldviews. They found that fundamentalists tended to endorse aggression when their worldviews were threatened. Hence, religious fundamentalism might constitute a coping strategy that, on one hand, provides protection against uncertainty and existential fear, but that, on the other hand, is also constantly under threat, simply because of norm-violating beliefs and behaviors (e.g., Friedman & Rholes, 2008; Vail et al., 2010).

Religious fundamentalism is also highly prevalent. Regarding Islam, for example, Beller and Kröger (2017) found via taxometric analyses that about 60% of Muslim youth in Egypt and about 87% of Muslim youth in Saudi Arabia might be classified as religious fundamentalists. In another study, Beller and Kröger (2018b) found that about 51% of Muslims from several majorly Muslim countries endorsed a series of fundamentalist beliefs. Yet, only tiny subsets of these fundamentalistic believers also endorse violence, which has led some authors to question the putative link between religious fundamentalism and violence (Hood, Hill, & Williamson, 2005; Williamson & Hood, 2014). Indeed, in the aforementioned study of Beller and Kröger (2018b), the authors found that religious fundamentalism did not increase support for religious violence, but was actually associated with a strong decrease in support for suicide bombings. Thus, the contribution of religious fundamentalism to violence remains controversial.

General religiosity is seen as a protective factor in criminological research (Baier & Wright, 2001; Johnson, De Li, Larson, & McCullough, 2000; but see for contrasting findings, Beller, Kröger, & Hosser, 2019). Empirically, however, divergent results have emerged regarding the contribution of general religiosity to honor violence. Glick, Sakallı-Uğurlu, Akbaş, Orta, and Ceylan (2016) employed a convenience sample of Turkish undergraduate students, to study the contribution of general religiosity to support for honor violence. They found that general religiosity predicted increased support for honor killings in both men and women. In another study, Eisner and Ghuneim (2013) studied, inter alia, the contribution of general religiosity to support for honor violence in a sample of 856 ninth-grade students in Jordan. Contrary to the study of Glick and colleagues, they found no significant contribution of religiosity to support for honor killings. Thus, those few studies that examined the contribution of religion to honor violence provide conflicting findings.

How can these divergences be explained? Multiple studies report that religiosity is not a unidimensional but rather a multidimensional construct that should be divided into at least the subdimensions of individual religiosity and social religiosity (e.g., Allport, 1966; Cornwall, Albrecht, Cunningham, & Pitcher, 1986). For example, in their seminal study on suicide bombings, Ginges, Hansen, and Norenzayan (2009) suggest that support for suicide attacks does not relate to individual religiosity per se, such as private prayer; rather, the social aspects of religiosity, such as mosque attendance, seem to predict increased support for violence. This finding is substantiated by the basic research on the effects of individual and social religious practices. Whereas private prayer has been found to increase well-being and empathy, and to decrease anger and aggression, religious service attendance seems to enhance commitment to, and cooperation within, a group, which, in turn, might also further support punishing group norm–violating behavior (Bremner, Koole, & Bushman, 2011; Poloma & Pendleton, 1991; Vasiliauskas & McMinn, 2013). Thus, previous studies might have provided conflicting findings simply because different aspects of religiosity have been lumped together.

The Current Study

Despite the huge debate about the possible causes of honor-based violence, empirical studies examining the possible contribution of aspects of religion are surprisingly scarce. Those studies that have examined the contribution of religion to honor-based violence provided conflicting findings and might be advanced upon in at least three ways (Eisner & Ghuneim, 2013; Glick et al., 2016). First, both previously cited studies analyzed religiosity as a single, unidimensional construct, although different aspects of religiosity have been shown to have differential effects on support for violence. Second, both studies did not include measures of religious fundamentalism, although religious fundamentalism might be one of the key constructs to explain how religion might motivate violence. And third, past studies used geographically confined convenience samples to analyze the contribution of religion to support for honor violence. Hence, there is clearly a need to investigate the contribution of religion to honor violence on a more global scale, making use of theoretically important variables such as individual religiosity, social religiosity, and religious fundamentalism. To help close this gap in the literature, we will use representative multinational data from “The World’s Muslims,” a survey provided by the Pew Research Center’s Religion and Public Life Project, to examine the contribution of individual religiosity, social religiosity, and religious fundamentalism to support for honor violence (N = 25,723, sampled from Albania, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Niger, Pakistan, Palestinian Territories, Russia, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, and Turkey; Pew Research Center, 2012). When untangling the effect of religiosity, we would expect that different aspects of religiosity have differential effects on support for honor violence.

Method

We used data from the Pew survey “The World’s Muslims,” provided by the Pew Research Center’s Religion and Public Life Project, to evaluate the contribution of aspects of religion to honor violence (Pew Research Center, 2012). The survey was conducted via face-to-face interviews in 2011 and 2012 in 26 countries. Sampling was done under the direction of Opinion Research Business and Princeton Survey Research Associates International. All samples were obtained by using an area probability design. The questionnaire was developed by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life in consultation with subject-matter experts and aimed to measure the political and social attitudes of Muslims, including their religious views. In the process of pretesting the questionnaire, results indicated that some questions were too sensitive to be asked in some countries, because these questions might offend the interviewees or risk the security of the interviewers. For example, questions about the interviewee’s attitude toward honor killings could not be asked in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and Uzbekistan. As such, we restricted our analyses to the 21 countries (the sample in Morocco did not provide information about the educational status of respondents and was, therefore, also not included) with complete information on all variables of interest (Albania, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Niger, Pakistan, Palestinian Territories, Russia, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, and Turkey). Thus, our data comprise 21 population-based samples from countries with major Muslim populations and contain information on individual socioreligious attitudes (for more methodological details regarding the sampling, see Pew Research Center, 2012).

The total number of participants surveyed was N = 25,723. Missing values (0%-16.70%) were imputed via the missForest procedure, which uses nonparametric recursive portioning and compares favorably with competing imputation algorithms (Stekhoven & Bühlmann, 2011; please note that similar results were obtained with listwise deletion). Thus, a final sample size of N = 25,723 (51% female) resulted.

Measures

We used private prayer frequency and mosque attendance frequency as individual and social aspects of religiosity. Furthermore, agreement to three forced-choice questions served as a measure of religious fundamentalism (Beller & Kröger, 2017). Demographic variables included sex, age, education, and urbanicity. Support for honor killings was operationalized via two items. The first item inquired about the acceptability of honor killings of women as punishment for premarital sex or adultery:

"Some people think that if a woman engages in premarital sex or adultery, it is justified for family members to end her life in order to protect the family’s honor. Others believe that this practice is not justified, no matter the circumstances. Do you personally feel that this practice is often justified to defend the family honor, sometimes justified, rarely justified, or never justified?"

The second item inquired about the acceptability of honor killings of men as punishment for premarital sex or adultery:

"Some people think that if a man engages in premarital sex or adultery, it is justified for family members to end his life in order to protect the family’s honor. Others believe that this practice is not justified, no matter the circumstances. Do you personally feel that this practice is often justified to defend the family honor, sometimes justified, rarely justified, or never justified?"

The operationalization of our measures is described in detail in Supplemental Table A1.

Statistical Analysis

First, we examined the bivariate relationships between variables via Spearman correlation analysis, which provides a measure of correlation suitable for ordinal data. Second, so as to gauge the relative impact of our predictors when accounting for the other variables, we conducted ordinal regression analyses, which is necessary due to the ordinal nature of our dependent variables (although the results are similar when simple linear regression analysis is used). Ordinal regression analysis provides odds ratio, which can be interpreted as the multiplicative increase in the odds to more strongly endorse honor violence when the respective predictor increases by 1 point. Because the hierarchical nature of our data implies a violation of the independence assumption (participants nested in countries tend to be more similar to each other than to the participants of other countries), we used multilevel ordinal regression analysis (utilizing the proportional odds model) with a varying intercept per country to control for this possible bias. All statistical analyses were conducted with the R software.

Results

We conducted correlation and multilevel ordinal regression analyses to examine the effects of aspects of religion and demographic variables on support for honor violence. Overall, average support for honor killings of women and men was highest in Lebanon (M = 2.14, SD = 1.17), Palestinian Territories (M = 2.10, SD = 1.20), and Niger (M = 2.09, SD = 1.20) and lowest in Indonesia (M = 1.28, SD = 0.65), Azerbaijan (M = 1.20, SD = 0.59), and Kazakhstan (M = 1.19, SD = 0.48), as can be seen in Supplemental Table A2.

Table 1 depicts the results of our Spearman correlation analyses. All our variables correlated significantly with support for honor killings of women. Prayer frequency, mosque attendance frequency, religious fundamentalism, and urbanity were associated with increased support for honor killings of women, whereas being female, a higher education level, and age were associated with decreased support for honor killings of women. Mosque attendance frequency seemed to be most strongly related to support for honor killings of women. The same pattern of associations held for support for honor killings of men. All the variables correlated significantly with the support for honor killings of men. Prayer frequency, mosque attendance frequency, religious fundamentalism, and living in a rural area were associated with increased support for honor killings of men, whereas being female, a higher education level, and age were associated with decreased support for honor killings of men. Mosque attendance frequency seemed to be most strongly related to support for honor killings of men. The size of the correlations was small, with a range of |.01| ≤ r ≤ |.13|.

Table 1.

Correlation Matrix (Spearman) of the Support for Honor Killings, Individual and Social Religious Practices, Religious Fundamentalism, and Demographic Variables (N = 25,723).

	M	SD	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)	(8)
1. Support for honor killings of women	1.78	1.09	—
2. Support for honor killings of men	1.65	0.99	.74***	—
3. Prayer frequency	5.33	2.18	.08***	.07***	—
4. Mosque attendance frequency	3.60	1.98	.13***	.11***	.39***	—
5. Religious fundamentalism	2.34	0.78	.10***	.08***	.31***	.20***	—
6. Gender (female)	0.51	0.50	−.05***	−.04***	.02***	−.39***	−.01	—
7. Age	37.56	14.13	−.01*	−.01*	.06***	.06***	.01*	−.03***	—
8. Education	0.00	1.00	−.04***	−.03***	−.03***	.02	−.06***	−.08***	−.25***	—
9. Urbanity (rural)	0.49	0.50	.03***	.06***	−.01*	.01*	.09***	−.03***	.03***	−.14***

p < .05. ***p < .001.

Table 2 displays the results of our multilevel ordinal regression analysis (Supplemental Table A3 displays the results when using simple ordinal regression analysis with country included as a covariate). When accounting for the interrelationships between predictors and the multilevel structure of our data, similar results emerged. Mosque attendance frequency, religious fundamentalism, and living in a rural region still predicted an increased support for honor killings of women and men. Furthermore, a higher educational level still predicted decreased support for honor violence against women and men. In contrast to the correlation analysis, however, prayer frequency and gender were not anymore significantly associated with support for honor killings of women or men.

Table 2.

Multilevel Ordinal Regression Analyses Predicting Support for Honor Killings of Women and Men (N = 25,723).

Variable	OR	95% CI	β	z	p
Support for honor killings of women (Nagelkerke’s R² = .15)
Prayer frequency	1.005	[0.990, 1.020]	1.010	0.609	.542
Mosque attendance frequency	1.094	[1.076, 1.113]	1.195	10.374	<.001
Religious fundamentalism	1.155	[1.112, 1.199]	1.118	7.409	<.001
Gender (female)	0.995	[0.940, 1.054]	0.995	−0.171	.864
Age	0.998	[0.997, 1.000]	0.979	−1.566	.117
Education	0.915	[0.891, 0.939]	0.915	−6.610	<.001
Urbanity (rural)	1.085	[1.027, 1.145]	1.085	2.908	.004
Support for honor killings of men (Nagelkerke’s R² = .12)
Prayer frequency	1.011	[0.996, 1.026]	1.024	1.383	.167
Mosque attendance frequency	1.095	[1.076, 1.114]	1.196	10.192	<.001
Religious fundamentalism	1.193	[1.147, 1.240]	1.193	8.855	<.001
Gender (female)	1.001	[0.944, 1.062]	1.001	0.045	.964
Age	0.998	[0.996, 1.000]	0.971	−2.129	.033
Education	0.948	[0.923, 0.974]	0.948	−3.860	<.001
Urbanity (rural)	1.116	[1.055, 1.179]	1.116	3.851	<.001

Note. OR = odds ratio; 95% CI = 95% confidence interval of OR; β = standardized (z scaled) odds ratio; z = z value of OR; p = p value of OR.

The standardized effects of our predictors in the multilevel ordinal regression analysis were substantial. Mosque attendance frequency had the largest effect on support for honor killings. Each increase of one standard deviation in mosque attendance frequency made it about 20% more likely that participants would more strongly support honor killings of men and women; and having religious fundamentalist attitudes made it about 12% (honor killings of women) to 19% (honor killings of men) more likely to more strongly support honor killings. The other effect sizes were comparatively smaller in size.

Discussion

In the current study, we analyzed how aspects of religiosity, religious fundamentalism, and demographic variables were associated with support for honor killings. We found that similar associations were applicable to support for honor killings of women and of men: Mosque attendance frequency, religious fundamentalism, being younger, having a lower educational level, and living in a rural environment predicted an increased support for honor killings of both women and men, whereas prayer frequency and gender were not significantly associated with support for honor killings of women or men. Thus, religion seems to have differential effects on support for honor killings: Whereas more individual aspects of religiosity such as private prayer seem to not be significantly related to support for honor violence, more social aspects of religiosity, such as mosque attendance and religious fundamentalism, seem to strongly predict an increased support for honor killings.

These results are in accordance with previous studies on the contribution of religion to religious violence. In the context of violent extremism, social aspects of religiosity, such as frequency of mosque attendance, have been shown to predict an increased support for suicide attacks, whereas private individual practices, such as private prayer or reading the Quran, were not significantly associated with support for suicide attacks or even decreased the support thereof (Beller & Kröger, 2018b; Ginges et al., 2009). This is the first study that showed that similar patterns seem to hold true in the case of honor killings.

The authors of the previously mentioned studies on extremist violence hypothesized that collective ritual behaviors, which could also be nonsecular in nature, might enhance in-group commitment and in-group cooperation (Preston & Ritter, 2013), which, in turn, might further intergroup conflict. However, this presumed mechanism cannot simply be assumed to be transferable to the case of honor-based violence, because the victims of honor-based violence are not out-group members, but family members, members of the in-group. One alternative explanation might be that the increased in-group commitment could promote punitiveness of in-group members when they are perceived to have violated group norms. Recent research supports this hypothesis: For example, Christensen, Rothgerber, Wood, and Matz (2004) found that stronger in-group identification predicted less favorable views of in-group members that violated social norms. Another possible explanation could be that social religious practices are associated with an increased personal importance of one’s social status within society (Allport, 1966). If, then, a family member is perceived to diminish one’s social status, one might see this as a relatively stronger threat, and one might be more likely to punish this person and to, thus, restore one’s own social status. Third, religious service attendance might increase support for honor-based violence, simply because some religious leaders advocate traditional values and norm-conforming behavior (e.g., Ceylan, 2010; Feldner, 2000). The more often one attends religious services in which norm-conform behavior and traditional values are supported, the stronger one’s negative views about deviating from these norms might be.

Therefore, one possible avenue for prevention efforts could be to engage religious authorities to more strongly speak out against honor-based violence. However, as previously discussed, the violence-promoting effect of mosque attendance might not depend on the religious beliefs of the individual but might be attributable to group processes, which would require different prevention strategies. Finally, future studies should explore the mechanisms by which social religious activities might increase support for honor-based violence and extremist violence.

We also found that religious fundamentalism increased support for honor killings. Previous studies differed in the findings regarding the contribution of religious fundamentalism to violence. Although most studies had pointed to a violence-promoting effect of religious fundamentalism (McCleary et al., 2011), some recent studies also found no or even protective effects of religious fundamentalism on violence (e.g., Beller & Kröger, 2018b). The current study supports the conclusion of the former studies: Religious fundamentalism strongly predicted an increased support for honor killings. That religious fundamentalism is associated with more favorable attitudes toward honor violence might be explained via terror management theory (Greenberg et al., 1986). From the perspective of terror management theory, religious fundamentalism is not just another aspect of religiosity, but rather provides individuals with several psychological benefits such as ultimate worldview certainty and ultimate protection from existential fear. These psychological benefits, however, are fragile because the fundamentalist worldview might be questioned and threatened by norm-deviating behaviors and attitudes (Friedman & Rholes, 2008). To people with religious fundamentalist attitudes, acting against religious norms might, thus, not just represent behavioral transgression, but might constitute an existential threat to their social identity and worldview, which consequently might elicit extreme responses to punish the offender. This might also help to explain why previous studies have found divergent findings regarding the contribution of religious fundamentalism to violence. Religious fundamentalism might most strongly contribute to violence under threat. For example, Williamson and Hood (2014) reported that religious fundamentalists were not per se punitive, but tended to act aggressively once their values were threatened. This is also in line with previous research. Most studies that found violence-promoting effects of religious fundamentalism were conducted in secular societies such as Germany in which religious fundamentalist attitudes might be constantly challenged (e.g., Koopmans, 2015). In contrast, Beller and Kröger (2018b), who found protective effects of religious fundamentalism for support for extreme violence, studied religious fundamentalism in Muslims from mostly highly religious societies such as Indonesia. In countries such as these, threats to religious fundamentalist worldviews might not be as common and, consequently, in these countries, religious fundamentalism might be not as strongly related to violence.

In addition, our results point to the importance of demographic variables in predicting support for honor killings. Most notably, a higher educational level strongly predicted decreased support for honor killings. Better educated individuals may be more likely to question the culturally shaped attitudes about honor-based violence (Floos & Pease, 2009). In addition, the educational level is strongly linked to one’s social status (Hollingshead, 1975). Highly educated families might not feel the need to restore their honor as strongly, simply because their social status in the community might depend more strongly on their educational and economic achievements rather than the norm-conforming behavior of individual family members. Thus, another possible avenue to diminish support for honor violence could be to increase the educational level of at-risk populations. However, future studies should explore the mechanisms by which education, parenting style, and gender stereotypes affect support for honor violence, because different mechanisms might implicate differential efficacy of prevention efforts.

Regarding the other demographic variables, we found that those who lived in rural surroundings tended to more strongly endorse honor violence. This is in line with previous research that shows that living in certain, especially rural areas is associated with more conservative attitudes and behavior including sexuality (Dodoo, Zulu, & Ezeh, 2007; Rentfrow, 2010; Swank, Frost, & Fahs, 2012; Wilson, 1973). Similarly, being older is associated with more strongly endorsing conservative values such as tradition and conformity (Robinson, 2013). Therefore, we would have expected that age was associated with support for honor killings, which we, however, did not find. However, being older is also associated with more benevolence and less positive attitudes toward violence, which might explain these seemingly counterintuitive findings (Robinson, 2013). One important implication of this result is that one should not expect the phenomenon of honor violence to simply disappear with the emergence of new generations, as some might have hoped in the course of the Arab spring (Roald, 2009). Contrarily, these results suggest that being younger or belonging to a newer generation is associated with stronger attitudes in favor of honor violence against men. Seconding this finding, analyses of the World Values Survey have found that younger Muslims showed almost no trend toward more liberal views regarding gender equality and sexual liberalization (Inglehart & Norris, 2003). Thus, it will likely need focused efforts to diminish support for honor-based violence in new generations.

Interestingly, we also found that gender had almost no association with support for honor-based violence, and that levels of support for honor killings against women were almost identical to the level of support for honor killings against men (1.78 vs. 1.65). Furthermore, there was a strong correlation of .74 between support for honor violence against men and support for honor violence against women, suggesting that there is a large overlap (“general support of honor based violence”) between both constructs. Thus, although women are certainly the main victims of honor violence, this suggests that honor violence is sometimes supported by both women and men and that honor violence might affect both women and men. This result could be seen to stand in contrast with framing honor-based violence as a form of gendered violence committed at the behest of patriarchal men against women victims (e.g., Schuler, Hashemi, Riley, & Akhter, 1996). Previous studies have suggested that women might endorse honor violence to build their and their families’ reputation by confirming to the social expectation that women should be loyal, humble, and submissive (Mosquera, Manstead, & Fischer, 2002; Vandello & Cohen, 2003; Vandello, 2016). However, female support of honor killings might also result from other reasons, such as a coping mechanism of identifying with the aggressors, which should be investigated by further research (Bates, 2018).

The current study could be improved in several ways. First, utilizing a large, multinational, population-based data set necessitated the use of several single-item indicators to measure our constructs. For example, support for honor killings was assessed by inquiring about the acceptability of honor killings for premarital sex and adultery. As there are also multi-item inventories for our constructs (e.g., the Revised Religious Orientation Scale; Gorsuch & McPherson, 1989), future studies could use more extensive operationalizations of our measures. This would also enable a more detailed definition of what constitutes adultery, which might be partly open for interpretation by respondents in the current study. Second, although support for honor violence is arguably one of the best available substitutes for studying why actual honor violence occurs, support for honor violence is still only a proxy variable. Future research should try to measure actual behavior, perhaps by using qualitative analyses to study honor killings. Finally, our data were sampled cross-sectionally. Hence, to provide stronger evidence for the direction of our effects, our analyses must be complemented by other study designs, including longitudinal data and/or experiments in which religious beliefs are primed (e.g., Sheikh, Ginges, Coman, & Atran, 2012). Yet, using the data set enabled us to study our research topic, the association between aspects of religiosity and support for honor violence, in a large, diverse, multinational, population-based sample, which is seen as pivotal to overcome the recent external validity crisis in empirical research (Button et al., 2013; Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010).

Taken together, these findings suggest that different aspects of religion have different effects on support for honor killings. Social religious practices and religious fundamentalism strongly predicted an increased support for honor violence, whereas individual religious practices were not significantly related to support for honor killings. This might explain why previous studies differed in their findings regarding religion. If only composite sum scores are used to measure religiosity, then results might differ between studies depending on which aspect of religiosity one taps into. In addition, we found that demographic variables had comparatively smaller effects. Only the educational level showed strong effects on support for honor killings. Thus, believers with a low level of education, who attend mosque frequently, and have a fundamentalistic attitude toward their religion are most likely to more strongly support honor violence. Future studies should replicate our findings and explore the mechanisms by which social religious practices, religious fundamentalism, and educantional level seem to affect support for honor violence.

Supplemental Material

Appendix_Tables – Supplemental material for Disentangling Honor-Based Violence and Religion: The Differential Influence of Individual and Social Religious Practices and Fundamentalism on Support for Honor Killings in a Cross-National Sample of Muslims

Supplemental material, Appendix_Tables for Disentangling Honor-Based Violence and Religion: The Differential Influence of Individual and Social Religious Practices and Fundamentalism on Support for Honor Killings in a Cross-National Sample of Muslims by Johannes Beller, Christoph Kröger and Daniela Hosser in Journal of Interpersonal Violence

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We want to express our gratitude to the Pew Research Center for providing us with the data used in the current study. The Pew Research Center bears no responsibility for the interpretations presented or conclusions reached based on analysis of the data.

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 author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: JB is supported by the German National Academic Foundation.

ORCID iD

Johannes Beller

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Author Biographies

Johannes Beller works as a research psychologist at the Hannover Medical School. He is mainly interested in psychosocial aspects of health across the lifespan, including violence.

Christoph Kröger is full-professor for Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy at University Hildesheim. He is state-licensed psychotherapist and clinical supervisor with focus on “Behavioral Therapy”. His research interests are psychological assessment and psychosocial treatments for mental illnesses, in particular posttraumatic stress disorders and borderline personality disorder, as well as counselling for couples and parents.

Daniela Hosser is a full-professor for Developmental, Personality and Forensic Psychology at the Technische Universität Braunschweig. Her research interests include delinquency, empathy and self-evaluative emotions.

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