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

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