Are Mediterranean Societies “Cultures of Honor?”: Prevalence and Implications of a Cultural Logic of Honor Across Three World Regions
Vignoles, Vivian L., Kirchner-Häusler, Alexander, Uskul, Ayse K., Cross, Susan E., Rodriguez-Bailón, Rosa, Bossom, Isabella R. L., Castillo, Vanessa A., Gezici-Yalçın, Meral, Harb, Charles, Ishii, Keiko, Karamaouna, Panagiota, Kafetsios, Konstantinos, Kateri, Evangelia, Matamoros-Lima, Juan, Miniesy, Rania, Na, Jinkyung, Özkan, Zafer, Pagliaro, Stefano, Psaltis, Charis, Rabie, Dina, Teresi, Manuel, Uchida, Yukiko and Wohl, Michael J. A. (2024) Are Mediterranean Societies “Cultures of Honor?”: Prevalence and Implications of a Cultural Logic of Honor Across Three World Regions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. ISSN 0146-1672
Abstract
Mediterranean societies are often labeled as “honor cultures,” in contrast with presumed “dignity” and “face” cultures of Anglo-Western and East Asian societies. We measured these cultural logics in two large-scale surveys (Studies 1 & 3: N = 2,942 students from 11 societies; Study 2: N = 5,471 adults from 14 societies). Middle Eastern and North African groups perceived honor values as the most normative in their societies, followed by Southeast European, and then Latin-European groups (who were comparable to Anglo-Western and East-Asian groups). East-Asian and Anglo-Western groups, respectively, perceived face and dignity values as most normative. Culture-level variation in perceived normative honor values, but not personal values, accounted for previously reported differences between Mediterranean and non-Mediterranean samples in several (but not all) measures of social cognitive tendencies. We conclude that a cultural logic of honor plays a role in Mediterranean societies, but labeling these societies as “honor cultures” is oversimplistic.
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