The pursuit of honor: Novel contexts, varied approaches, and new developments

Why are people around the world willing to sacrifice for honor? This chapter addresses that question with a focus on the little-researched cultural context of Turkey. When compared to Americans from northern states, Turkish people have richer conceptions of the concept of honor, and they perceive that more situations are imbued with honor-related implications. They respond to honor-relevant situations with more intense emotions and are more sensitive to sharing content in social media that could lead to shame or disrepute. This research replicated previous findings of the link between honor and aggression, and it showed that honor threats impair goal pursuit more among Turkish participants. Turkish participants react more strongly to a charge that they behaved dishonestly (i.e., an honor threat) than to a charge that they were incompetent, compared to northern Americans. This research provides an important extension to previous research focused on the southern states in the U.S.