HONOR 1

RUNNING HEAD: Honor

RUNNING HEAD: Honor

To a more systematic approach of studying honor and honor-related violence: Relating

dishonor to an immoral reputation

Yvette van Oscha

Tilburg University

Robert Ermersb

Radboud University Nijmegen

a
Tilburg University, PO Box 90153; 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands,

Y.M.J.vanOsch@tilburguniversity.edu
b
Radboud University Nijmegen, PO Box 9102, 6500 HC Nijmegen, The Netherlands, info@mo-

perspectief.nl
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Abstract

This paper identifies three gaps in the literature on honor: (1) the lack of a social-psychological

process explaining honor-related behavior, (2) the lack of focus on the associates of the dishonored

person (the ones who often aggress), and (3) the lack of a systematic understanding of the influence

of culture on honor-related responses. We present a framework that fills these gaps by (1)

presenting a social-psychological process that assumes that the loss of honor is identical to losing

one’s moral reputation, which may lead to stigmatization and social exclusion for those who lost

their moral reputation, (2) and for those who are associated with that person. And, (3) we identify

three ways in which culture can affect the proposed social-psychological process. The new

framework enables a more systematic study of honor, points out avenues for future research, and

highlights connections to other fields of study (morality, stigmatization, social exclusion).

Keywords: honor, stigma, social exclusion, ostracism, morality, moral transgression, honor culture
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“The … literature on honor certainly has a number of curious features, one of them being

that it rarely asks what exactly honor is.” (Stewart, 1994, pp. ix).

“honor is the good opinion of the people who matter to us, and who matter because we regard them

as a society who have the power to judge our behaviour” (Bowman, 2006, p. 4).

According to some, honor used to be important to people from across the globe, from

England to Mongolia (Bowman, 2006). In the past century however, the concepts of honor and

honor-related violence have become known more as culture-specific phenomena (e.g., Heine, 2008;

Bowman, 2006). Most current work departs from the idea that there are specific types of cultures,

often referred to as ‘honor cultures’, in which the concept of honor or an ‘honor code’ - a cultural

syndrome (Triandis, 1996) - is seen as predictive of an array of mainly negative behaviors (e.g.,

Leung & Cohen, 2011). So-called honor cultures can be found in the Mediterranean area (e.g.,

Spain, Turkey, Israel), the Middle East (e.g. Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinian Territories), Central

Asia (e.g., Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan) the Southern part of the United States and, by

extension, certain organizational structures (e.g., gangs, military, sports teams; Crook, 2009;

Horowitz & Schwartz, 1974). Current studies of responses to honor threats and honor-related

violence in these honor cultures are often of a descriptive nature and mainly focus on cultural

differences between certain geographical areas. This has led to an exotic view on honor, by some

even referred to as an ‘ethnographic extravaganza’ (Giordano, 2005), of individual actors and

conventions in these cultures as disproportionally aggressive, and has caused negative prejudice

against individuals from so-called honor cultures (e.g., Brenninkmeijer, 2018).

Although the literature on honor is steadily expanding, we have identified three gaps that

seem to be fundamental in a thorough understanding of the concept of honor and honor-related

violence. These three gaps in the literature are: (1) the lack of a social-psychological process

explaining honor-related behavior, (2) the lack of focus on the associates of the dishonored person

(the ones who often aggress/kill), and (3) the lack of a systematic understanding of how cultural
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differences in honor-related responses come about. Below we address each of these gaps separately

and provide the reader with a theoretical framework, drawing on research from various disciplines

(psychology, anthropology, and linguistics), to close these gaps. In doing so, we first describe a

social-psychological process that assumes that the loss of honor is identical to losing a good moral

reputation which may lead to stigmatization and social exclusion, resulting in various psychological

and behavioral responses. Second, in this process we do not only focus on the person who is

considered dishonorable, but also on those who are associated with that person. Third, we identify

three systematic variations across cultures that may give rise to observed cultural differences in the

proposed social-psychological process.

The framework offers a clear conceptualization of honor and honor-related violence and

offers explanations for why, when, and how individuals’ honor is under threat and what type of

responses can be expected why, when, and by whom. In doing so, we integrate separate areas of

research in psychology (work on cultural differences, morality, social stigma, and social exclusion),

and aim to create a more general understanding about people’s motives in honor-related situations

across cultures. We do not aim to offer a completely new theory, but provide a framework that can

unite the manifold definitions, conceptualizations, and findings in the research on honor, puts forth

testable hypotheses and avenues for future research, and can also aid in the daily work of

practitioners who deal with honor-related issues and violence.

Why do researchers speak of cultures with and without honor?

Before we start addressing the gaps in the literature on honor, we think it necessary to give the

reader some background as to how this literature came about and what some of its core ideas are.

The conclusion of this section will be that there is no consensus among researchers on what honor is

and what honor cultures are. To answer the question what honor is, the vast majority of publications

on non-western honor refers to or adopts the definition of honor by Julian Pitt-Rivers, a British

anthropologist and ethnographer working mainly in Andalusia, Spain in the 1950’s:

“Honour is the value of a person in his own eyes, but also in the eyes of his

society. It is his estimation of his own worth, his claim to pride, but it is also the
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acknowledgement of that claim, his excellence recognized by society, his right

to pride. Students of the minutiae of personal relations have observed that they

are much concerned with the ways in which people extort from others the

validation if the image which they cherish of themselves and the two aspects of

honour may be reconciled in those terms. Honour, therefore, provides a nexus

between the ideals of a society and their reproduction in the individual through

his aspiration to personify them. As such, it implies not merely an habitual

preference for a given mode of conduct, but the entitlement to a certain treatment

in return. The right to pride is the right to status … and status is established

through the recognition of a certain social identity.” (Pitt-Rivers, 1977, pp. 1-2).

According to Pitt-Rivers, honor in Andalusia is a multi-faceted construct, which involves feelings,

thoughts, values, self-esteem, reputation, societal ideals, entitlement, social status, and motivational

and behavioral components (see also Pitt-Rivers, 1968, p. 503). The work by Pitt-Rivers (1954;

1966) and Peristiany (1966) sparked off a wealth of studies, usually focusing on one of the many

proposed aspects of honor. Pitt-Rivers’ interpretation of honor was by extension applied to peoples

in the entire Mediterranean area, such as in Greece (Safilios-Rothchild, 1969; Avdela, 2011), the

Middle East (e.g. Dodd, 1973; Kressel, 1981; Abou Zeid, 1965), Northern Africa (Abu-Lughod,

1985; Bourdieu, 1972), but also Sub-Saharan Africa (Iliffe, 2005; Moritz, n.d.).

We cannot pinpoint a specific source that is the first to explicitly state that there are cultures

with and without honor, or cultures high and low in honor. We think that due to a focus of

anthropologists on the Mediterranean area that this area was considered an area in which honor

cultures operated, and that implicitly researchers assumed that in other areas non-honor cultures or

cultures low in honor resided. When the study of honor was picked up by psychologists this

distinction between honor and non-honor cultures was made more explicit. At the moment,

researchers either often use a dichotomous typology of honor cultures versus non-honor cultures

(e.g., Vandello & Cohen, 2008), cultures high and cultures low in honor (e.g., Rodriguez Mosquera,
 HONOR 6
Fischer, Manstead, & Zaalberg, 2008), or a tripartite division of (Asian) cultures of face, (Western)

dignity (or ‘cultures of law’), and honor (e.g., Leung and Cohen, 2011).

Earlier accounts of honor, including that by Pitt-Rivers, were more focused on the honor of

non-western men, rather than on cross-cultural differences. Honor was correlated with

characteristics typically projected on masculinity, such as ambition, status awareness, strength,

dominance, oppression, and violence. Ancient and ‘primitive’ violent practices such as feuds and

blood revenge were associated with men defending their ‘honor’ by showing a tough and violent

attitude, ‘reflexivity’ (Stewart, 1994), or striving at heroism (Bowman, 2006; Çaya, 2014; Zmora,

2011) also among the peoples of both the Old and New Testament which, too, lived in regions

adjacent to the Mediterranean (e.g. Downing, 1999; Malina, 1996). The historical duels among the

elite were remnants of these practices in Europe until the 20th century (Banks, 2010). There was

little conceptual criticism on the regional demarcation of the Mediterranean as a homogenous area

that coincided with an honor culture (for criticism see Herzfeld, 1980; Wikan, 1984; Lever, 1986).

While in the days of Pitt-Rivers honor was not posited for people outside of the Mediterranean,

more recently social psychologists acknowledged very similar character features in (male) members

of certain subgroups in Western communities as well, such present-day Texans (Nisbett and Cohen,

1996), gangs and the military (Crook, 2009) and even sportsmen and -women (Saucier &

McManus, 2014); as a result these subgroups are considered ‘honor cultures’ as well.

Simultaneously, other authors narrowed down the definition of honor in other respects, as they

assume men’s honor in ‘honor cultures’ depends to a large extent or entirely on women’s behavior,

or rather men’s subjective perspectives thereof (Eisner & Ghuneim, 2013; Sharma, 2015). For some

non-western populations a strong gender related dichotomy is posited, in which non-western women

are considered not to possess honor at all; they merely contribute to male honor, or their family’s

honor, when they are chaste and obedient (Van Eck, 2003). This has turned honor into a gendered

issue (e.g., Brandes, 1980; Mitchell, 1996; Murphy, 1983; Peristiany, 1965; Pitt-Rivers, 1977),

related to patriarchy, an important notion from feminist studies which summarizes an alleged male

striving to dominate over other people and women in particular (e.g. Vella Gregoy, 2006; Casimir
 HONOR 7
and Jung, 2009). In order to oppress and subdue women, the argument goes, men from ‘honor

cultures’ use violence against their own womenfolk in order to control their movements and female

sexuality (Abu-Odeh, 2010; Faqir, 2001), in order to appear as a ‘real’ man in their society and to

themselves, hence the interpretation of honor based violence as a type of ‘family violence’

(Tokiharu, Mayeda & Vijaykumar, 2016). However, there is no cross-cultural research showing that

these gendered honor codes are absent in allegedly less honor-oriented, non-Mediterranean cultures.

In fact, in these publications, the masculine and feminine roles are likely to be expressions of pan-

cultural ideals of masculinity and femininity (Rodriguez Mosquera, 2011) and phenomena such as

mate-guarding (Buss, 2002; Buunk & Castro Solano, 2012) and daughter guarding (Perilloux et al.,

2008). In addition, this theory leaves important theoretical blind spots in that men from ‘honor

cultures’ allegedly cannot lose their honor as the result of their own misbehavior, or their menfolk’s,

and that women from those cultures cannot lose their honor over other family members', male or

female, moral misbehavior (Ermers, 2018).

Most empirical efforts in the past two decades have been directed toward cataloguing

cultural differences in the valuation of honor (e.g., Fischer, Manstead, & Rodriguez Mosquera,

1999; Helkama et al., 2013; Martins Guerra, Giner-Sorolla, & Vasiljevic, 2012; Rodriguez

Mosquera, Manstead, Fischer, 2002a), conceptualization of honor (e.g., Cross et al., 2014), and

psychological and behavioral responses to insults, in terms of self-esteem (e.g., Novin, Tatar, &

Krabbendam, 2015; Rodriguez Mosquera, Manstead, & Fischer, 2002b), emotions (e.g., Maitner,

Mackie, Pauketat, & Smith, 2017; Rodriguez Mosquera, 2018; Rodriguez Mosquera, Fischer,

Manstead, & Zaalberg, 2008), hostility (e.g., Barnes, Brown, & Osterman, 2012), and aggression

(e.g., Cohen, Nisbett, Bowdle, & Schwarz, 1996; Uskul, Cross, Gunsoy, Gercek-Swing, Alozkan, &

Ataca, 2015; Vandello & Cohen, 2008; Vandello, Cohen, & Ransom, 2008; Van Osch,

Breugelmans, Zeelenberg, & Boluk, 2013). These studies compare a large variety of so-called honor

cultures (from the South of the United States to Russia to the United Arab Emirates) and non-honor

cultures (from the North of the United States to the Netherlands to Finland). This research has

provided a wealth of information on cultural differences between honor and non-honor cultures, but
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in spite of that has shed little light on the psychological processes underlying such differences

(Üskül, Cross, Günsoy, & Gül, in press).

Historically, it seems unclear how one conceptualization of honor was followed by another

and how to unite the manifold of conceptualizations on honor across fields. There thus seems to be

little consensus among researchers on what honor is and what honor cultures are.

Gap 1: A social psychological process underlying honor-related responses

As illustrated above, the psychological literature on honor has mainly been documenting

cultural differences without explaining why, in psychological terms, these differences would occur.

In this section we propose a social-psychological process underlying honor-related behavior. In

order to do that we for now ignore any type of cultural factor. At a later stage (when we address

Gap 3) we explain how we believe culture affects this process and propose that cultural differences

can be observed across the span of this process.

Based on the multi-disciplinary literature on honor, we want to connect empirical evidence

on how people respond to honor threats (i.e., a situation in which one’s honor is threatened) to a

common social psychological process. From the literature on honor we have distilled one common

element in definitions of honor and one pivotal common process. A feature that seems central to

honor is that of having a moral reputation, i.e. a reputation of trustworthiness and integrity, a

reputation of being a ‘good’ person (e.g., Abu Lughod, 1985; Aslani et al., Cross et al., 2014;

Ermers, 2018; Mandelbaum, 1988; Martins Guerra, Giner-Sorolla & Vasiljevic, 2012; Rodriguez

Mosquera et al., 2002a; Sev’er, 1999; Stewart, 1994; Uskul et al., in press; Van Osch, 2017).

Therefore, in this paper we conceptualize having honor as being synonymous with having a

reputation for being a morally good person. Individuals can lose their honor if they act (or are

accused of acting) in a way that deviates from how they are supposed to act according to the moral

norms of the group they (aspire to) belong to. Groups will try to exclude morally deviant members.

The individual however has no choice but to defend or restore their moral reputation (shed the

stigma) in order to prevent social exclusion and maintain group membership. Below we outline how
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this process works from a social psychological viewpoint and how findings from the literature on

honor relate to this conceptualization.

Why and how do groups respond to morally deviant group members?

Individuals live in groups (communities, subcommunities), and each group has its own rules

(moral norms, values and codes; Xenitidou & Edmonds, 2014; Christen et al, 2014; Schultz et al,

2007). If people do not abide those rules they may be marked (stigmatized: Mishina & Devers,

2012), denied fitness for membership, and could be socially excluded (shunned, expelled) from

their group (Abrams, Hogg, & Marques, 2004; Eidelman, Silvia, & Biernat, 2006; Juvonen, 1991).

It does not matter whether the group member is actually deviant or perceived as deviant; the group

will act based on what they believe the intentions or actions of the group member are. It is

beneficial for groups to exclude deviant group members because they pose a potential threat for the

survival of the group as a whole (Eidelman & Biernat, 2003; Chekroun & Nugier, 2011;

Wesselmann & Wirth et al, 2013). Excluding deviant group members also aids in sustaining

positive ingroup evaluations and ingroup identity (e.g., Lewis & Sherman, 2010), makes groups

more cohesive and increases their reproductive success (Williams, 2007a; Cavazza et al, 2014), and

helps control cheating (Tomasello & Vaish, 2013). Similar processes are also found to exist in

groups of animals (primates, elephants, and other mammals; Bekoff and Pierce 2009; De Waal,

2005).

When someone is (thought to be) deviating from what is considered ‘normal’ in his or her

community, this person receives a stigma, a social mark (Jones et al, 1984). A stigma can be based

upon a number of characteristics (Goffman, 1963), for which we distinguish between non-moral

stigmas and moral stigmas, the criterion being whether deviations are considered bad and perceived

to pose a threat to the group. While the social and emotional consequences of both types of stigma

show similarities, we suggest that only the stigmas that evolve from moral misbehavior are related

to the concept of dishonor. People who do not meet societal ideals or fail to obtain certain social

status characteristics (e.g., poor or deformed individuals) can still be included and protected by

other individuals in their community (Ermers, 2018). In fact, research shows that negative
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information about a person’s morality is seen as more diagnostic than negative information about a

person’s competence (e.g., Brambilla, Rusconi, Sacchi, & Cherubini, 2011; Goodwin, Piazza, &

Rozin, 2014; Ståhl and Ellemers, 2016) and has more severe interpersonal consequences (Skitka,

Bauman, & Sargis, 2005).

Morality encompasses the concerns people have that center around harm-care and fairness-

reciprocity, or in other words “morality = not harming or cheating others” (Haidt & Kesebir, 2010,

p. 799). A moral person is someone who can be trusted not to harm others. Morally accepted

conduct is necessary for social interaction to sustain. An individual who is not stigmatized, rejected,

and ostracized is considered a regular, trustworthy and integer member of his or her community,

and as such is entitled to respect and to participate in agreement to his social status and

relationships. Therefore, any full member of the community necessarily possesses honor, a

reputation for being a moral person, regardless of his or her social status and competences, and

expects to be trusted, and met with the appropriate forms of respect. To give an example, one can be

seen as dumb or as a cripple (a failure in terms of competence and societal ideal), but that does not

necessarily threaten one’s position or value in society. However, an individual's immoral conduct

constitutes an immediate risk to one’s entire social group and thus requires action from other group

members. Moral stigmas are thus more than a ‘bad reputation’ (Mishina & Devers, 2012), because a

stigmatized individual is devalued, and avoided by others who are aware of the stigma; the

individual is no longer valued by society or seen as decent, trustworthy, and reliable. Being morally

stigmatized means that one is not considered a full-fledged member of society and that one can no

longer count on the support from others. Therefore, any morally stigmatized member of the

community faces a state of dishonor.

Once a moral stigma is obtained a likely consequence is being feared by others and being

socially excluded (Dijker & Koomen, 2007). Breaking the moral codes in one’s community can

even be interpreted as an aggressive offence to the group itself, and a counterattack then seems

justified (Bond, 2004). The severity of responses can range from no longer being able to enjoy

certain benefits the group offers to indefinite expulsion, depending of course on the nature of the
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moral misconduct. Researchers have termed social exclusion as the consequence of stigmatization

‘social death’ (Williams, 2007; Herrmann, 2011; Ouwerkerk, et al., 2005). Groups thus use

inclusion to reward and exclusion to punish their members as a means to maintain the groups’ moral

values and norms (e.g., Baumeister & Leary, 1995). We are not the first to connect the loss of honor

or dishonor in non-western communities to social exclusion. Customary law systems as well as

penal codes use ostracism to punish those who violate moral norms (e.g., imprisonment is a form of

social exclusion from both one's community and society in general). For instance, Afghan tribes

ostracize and exile those who violate the moral norms (Mahdi, 1986). More importantly, the loss of

honor has often been described as equal to the loss of life (e.g., Doğan, 2018) or as being dead to

others (e.g., Bourdieu, 1966).

But what is considered morally wrong or deviant? Morality or moral norms differ across

groups (e.g., Ellemers, Pagliaro, & Barreto, 2013; Tomasello & Vaish, 2013). What is considered

right or wrong depends on the community one is in (Ellemers, Pagliaro, & Barreto, 2013; Ellemers

& Van den Bos, 2012). For example, liberals and conservatives seem to emphasize different

dimensions of morality (Hofmann, Wisneski, Brandt, & Reyna, 2014). Actions such as abortion and

euthanasia are considered acceptable in some, but morally ‘wrong’ in other communities.

Throughout the paper, we will illustrate the social-psychological process of moral deviance to

stigma and exclusion with two examples, one from a country which by some researchers is

considered an ‘honor culture’ (e.g., certain villages in Turkey; Uskul & Cross, 2018) and one from a

country which is considered a ‘non-honor culture’ (e.g., a Western academic community). First, one

can think of a fictitious Turkish woman who is suspected of being adulterous. Adultery is

something clearly not accepted in many communities in Turkey. When her family members find

out, an adulterous woman is considered ‘bad’, and ‘indecent’ and will most likely have a hard time,

she will no longer be trusted, shunned by both her own family and her in-laws, and divorced by her

husband (Ermers, 2018; Van Eck 2003). When consequently the larger community learns about her

behavior, due to her stigma for immorality, her own family may feel compelled to exclude her. As a

result, she will have a difficult time finding friends willing to help her or, for that matter, men who
 HONOR 12
would want to marry her. Second, one can think of a Western academic who is accused of academic

fraud, let’s say data fabrication. This person will no longer be trusted by his or her immediate

colleagues, the university, or the broader academic community when the accusations are believed.

He or she will not be able to continue work in teaching and research, will be excluded from the

university and the wider academic society, and due to the stigma, will not be given a job at a

different academic institution.

Why a moral reputation and not just ‘a’ reputation? Readers might wonder why we

define honor as a moral reputation and not as a reputation in general. First, many scholars have

already alluded to honor as a reputation of being a moral person (e.g., Abu Lughod, 1985; Aslani et

al., Cross et al., 2014; Ermers, 2010; Ermers, 2018; Mandelbaum, 1988; Martins Guerra, Giner-

Sorolla & Vasiljevic, 2012; Rodriguez Mosquera et al., 2002a; Sev’er, 1999; Stewart, 1994; Uskul

et al., in press; Van Osch, 2017). Second, an immoral reputation will lead to stronger reactions than

any negative reputation in a non-moral domain. People categorize individuals on the basis of three

dimensions: morality, competence (also referred to as agency, ability), and warmth (also referred to

as sociability, communion; Brambilla, Rusconi, Sacchi & Cherubini, 2011; Brambilla, Sacchi,

Rusconi, Cherubini & Yzerbyt, 2012; Goodwin, 2015). Recent research is revealing that the

morality dimension trumps the dimensions of competence and warmth. For example, in experiments

individuals found it more important to have a moral ingroup than a warm or competent ingroup

(Leach, Ellemers, & Barreto, 2007). The categorization of warmth and competence seem to be

contingent on the categorization of a person as morally good, as morality is indicative of a person’s

intentions and warmth and competence are indicative for how likely this person is able to act on

their intentions (Landy, Piazza, & Goodwin, 2016). Furthermore, people are more likely to be

excluded on the basis of immoral behavior rather than incompetent or cold behavior (e.g., Pagliaro,

Ellemers, Barreto, & Di Cesare, 2016). It seems that people are more likely to blame or hold

responsible those that ‘chose’ to act in an immoral manner than to blame those who ‘failed’ because

they were limited by their capabilities. People who acted immorally but are deemed incapable are

often excused, and in a court of law not held accountable for their deeds (e.g., children are trialed
 HONOR 13
differently, and so are adults who are considered to have developmental deficiencies or mental

disorders; Weiner, 2001). Also, research has shown that the social and psychological impact of

moral stigma is more severe than the impact of social or physical stigma (Ashforth & Kreiner,

2014). There is also evidence indicating that moral diversity is considered undesirable and

intolerable, whereas diversity in terms of non-moral domains (e.g., social, conventional or

metaphysical beliefs or acts) is considered tolerable (Wainryb, Shaw, Laupa, & Smith, 2001;

Wright et al., 2008). Finally, people from across the globe see their moral reputation as more

important than other non-moral reputations (Vonasch, Reynolds, Winegard, & Baumeister, 2017,

Study 1), and North-Americans are willing to sacrifice their life, endure pain or disgusting

procedures in order to prevent getting immoral reputations (Vonasch et al., 2017; Studies 2-4).

Thus, summarizing, losing one’s honor results in some form of social exclusion in so-called honor

cultures (the example of the fictitious Turkish woman), in the same manner that losing one’s

reputation for being a moral person does in many other groups. Therefore, we argue that losing

one’s honor is analogous to losing one’s reputation for being a moral person, but not to losing one’s

reputation for being a competent or warm person. Please note that what in some communities is

considered a competence-related trait (e.g., taking care of the family), can be a moral trait in others.

We discuss the impact of differences in what is considered immoral behavior across communities

when we address Gap 3 (see page 27).

How do individuals respond to threats of social exclusion psychologically?

Individual group members must maintain a reputation free of morally deviant behavior, in

order not to obtain a moral stigma and thus risk social exclusion. As long as their reputation is free

of morally deviant behavior, the individual is seen as a worthy member and is entitled to remain

included in the group. Research has shown that people are extremely sensitive to social exclusion.

When people detect social exclusion they feel pain (Eisenberger, Lieberman & Williams, 2003;

Williams & Nida, 2011; Wesselmann, Bagg & Williams, 2009; MacDonald & Leary, 2005), and

perceive threats to four fundamental needs: the need for self-esteem, the need to belong, the need

for control over one’s life, and the need for a meaningful existence, (Leary & Downs, 1995; Leary,
 HONOR 14
2005; Williams, 1997; 2007). The literature on stigma also indicates that stigmatized individuals

experience threats to their identity and suffer in terms of self-esteem and health (Jones et al., 1984;

Major & O’Brien, 2005). In the literature on honor researchers also identify the impact that loss of

honor has on the two most fundamental needs: the need for self-esteem and the need to belong.

A threatened need for self-esteem. Self-esteem is centered on whom people believe they

should be or what they should do to have worth or value in the eyes of society (Crocker & Park,

2004; Leary, Tambor, Terdal, Downs, 1995). It is considered the affective output (how do I feel

about myself) of the self-esteem system that continuously monitors how a person is doing in terms

of maintaining valuable relationships: “self-esteem … monitors others' reactions and alerts the

individual to the possibility of social exclusion” (Leary et al., 1995, pp. 518). Some argue that

people do not strive for increasing their self-esteem as such, but put effort into not being rejected or

devalued as a potential relationship partner (Leary, 1999).1 A stigma is known to affect the behavior

of the stigmatized individual him- or herself, by means of lowered self-esteem or depression (Smart

Richman & Leary, 2009).

People also want – as part of their self-esteem –to think of themselves as morally good

(Aquino & Reed, 2002), as valued by others and become distressed when their self-esteem is

threatened (Leary & Downs, 1995). The need for self-esteem maintenance is suggested to also

include public image maintenance: “[S]elf-esteem will be threatened whenever individuals become

aware that some aspect of themselves may undermine their efforts to fulfill a valued role, be desired

by others, gain social approval, avoid disapproval” (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986, pp.

204).

Indeed, a large chunk of the literature on honor concerns self-evaluations. The definition of

honor by Pitt-Rivers (1977; see page 4-5) refers to how people evaluate themselves and how they

think others evaluate them. This clearly reveals two factors: the first is self-evaluations and the

1
Van Zomeren’s (2016) selvations theory suggests that individuals are not triggered by self-centered motives, such as a
threatened need for self-esteem, but instead by the prospect of damage to their network of social relations,
evolutionarily essential for survival. According to this theory, the individual registers changes in their network on a very
basic conscious level.
 HONOR 15
second is perceptions of how others evaluate the self (also see Leung & Cohen, 2011). These factors

are inextricably connected because, as mentioned above, self-evaluations usually are made up of

both internal and perceived external evaluations, which fluctuate given the social situation one is in

(Heatherton & Polivy, 1991). In the literature on honor several terms have been used for these self-

evaluations, some referring to either the internal or external components, or to both simultaneously.

The terms self-respect, moral behavior, and social respect turned out to be the central components

of honor among samples of Turkish and northern Americans who freely generated terms associated

with the words ‘honor’ and ‘onur’ (one of several potential translations for honor in Turkish). Thus,

this prototype analysis, concerning the semantic meaning of honor, revealed self-evaluations to be

of central interest in the experience of honor (Cross et al., 2014).

Many social psychological studies employ the concern for honor scale by Rodriguez

Mosquera, Manstead, and Fischer (2002a) in order to measure to what extent individuals adhere to a

specific ‘honor code’. These concerns are “a set of values and norms that define honourable and

dishonourable behavior, and thereby prescribe those things about which an individual with a sense

of honour should be concerned” (Rodriguez Mosquera et al., 2002a, pp. 146). This honor scale

measures four different concerns for honor: (1) the concern for family honor, (2) the concern for

integrity, (3) the concern for masculine honor, and (4) the concern for feminine honor. In the

literature, these concerns have been used to predict differences in emotional reactions (e.g.,

IJzerman, Van Dijk, & Galluci, 2007; Rodriguez Mosquera et al., 2008; Rodriguez Mosquera et al.,

2002a), behavioral intentions (e.g., Maitner, Mackie, Pauketat, & Smith, 2017; Van Osch,

Breugelmans, Zeelenberg, & Bölük, 2012), and actual behavior following offences between cultural

samples that are more and less concerned about honor (Leung & Cohen, 2011). Participants respond

to the different concerns in this scale by indicating “the extent to which such a behavior or

reputation would damage their self-esteem” (Rodriguez Mosquera et al., 2002a, p. 150; italics

added). This reveals that the measurement of honor, as it is often used, also links honor to the extent

to which individuals experience threats to self-esteem. Thus, we see that honor is often thought of

as referring to self-evaluations based on both internal and external information.

 HONOR 16
Another component that is often related to honor cultures is the self-concious emotion of

shame (e.g., Rodriguez Mosquera, Manstead, & Fischer, 2000; Sev’er & Yurdakul, 2001), which is

believed to be closely related to self-evaluations and thus self-esteem (e.g., Tracy, Robins, &

Tangney, 2007). Shame is a negative emotion that is felt in regards to failures caused by oneself that

could lead to devaluation by others (Robertson, Sznycer, Delton, Tooby, & Cosmides, 2018), this

relationship seems to be universal (Sznycer, Tooby, Cosmides, Porat, Shalvi, & Halperin, 2016;

Sznycer et al., 2018). In others words shame, across cultures, seems an adaptive mechanism to

counter social exclusion.

A threatened need to belong. The need to belong is a fundamental motivation to form and

maintain meaningful social relationships (Leary & Baumeister, 1995). Threats to or the loss of such

relationships have detrimental consequences for the individual, for example in terms of stress

responses, the development of mental illnesses, or suicide (see Chu, Ma, Bongar & Goldblum,

2014). Losing one’s honor, in our terms one’s reputation for trustworthiness and integrity, may be a

realistic threat to social relationships. The loss of honor has indeed been described in terms of loss

of belongingness and loss of self: “dishonor is a fall from grace in the most comprehensive sense –

loss of face in the community, but also loss of self and separation from the basic norms that govern

human life” (Berger, 1974, p. 174). The experience of honor and of a threatened need to belong is

thus seen as analogous to the anticipation of social exclusion or ‘social death’ (Bourdieu, 1966;

Williams, 2007).

The loss of honor and the loss of one’s moral reputation both lead individuals to experience

threats to fundamental needs such as the need for self-esteem and the need to belong. This is

illustrated in the top panel of Figure 1.

How do individuals respond to threats of social exclusion behaviorally?

A situation of dishonor, i.e. of having an immoral reputation, is very costly to the individuals

involved, in terms of psychological (self-esteem, the need to belong) and social consequences

(exclusion, rejection, social death). In an evolutionary sense, social exclusion used to equal physical

death. Potential stigmatization and social exclusion should be responded to immediately in order to
 HONOR 17
limit the psychological and social damage. Social psychologists have documented how victims of

social exclusion cope with their situation (e.g., Wesselmann & Williams, 2013). Researchers have

discerned several response categories: (1) fight, people respond to exclusion with derogation and

aggression (e.g., Ren, Wesselmann, & Williams, 2018; Twenge, Baumeister, Tice, & Stucke, 2001),

presumably to regain control over the situation (Williams, 2007). (2) Tend-and-befriend, individuals

on the verge of being excluded often act prosocially towards others (outgroups) in order to increase

chances of future inclusion or those who are already excluded are more attuned to social

information and conformation (Baumeister, Brewer, Tice, & Twenge, 2007; Gardner, Pickett, &

Brewer, 2000). And, (3) freeze, people who are excluded sometimes do nothing, possibly because

any type of reaction might make the situation more critical (Baumeister, De Wall & Ciarocco,

2005).

The social psychological work on honor has almost exclusively centered on the link between

dishonor and ‘fight’ responses, especially among men in so-called honor cultures. In several studies

it was established that honor threats, such as insults, increased self-reported (e.g., Van Osch et al.,

2013), but also observed aggressive responses (e.g., IJzerman et al., 2007; Shafa, Harinck, Ellemers,

& Beersma, 2015; Uskul et al., 2015) in so-called honor cultures. The hallmark study by Cohen and

colleagues (1996) also found a relationship between dishonor and aggressive responses in the South

of the United States. In this study, students from the South and the North of the US were confronted

with a compatriot who unexpectedly insulted them. Among Southerners the insult increased their

testosterone and cortisol levels, which indicates that threatened individuals became more action

ready for aggressive behaviors (Cohen et al., 1996). Also, research has focused on the relationship

between honor threats and emotional experiences of anger. For example, following an insult people

(across cultural groups) experience anger and intent on verbal attack in order to punish the offender

(Rodriguez Mosquera et al., 2008). Anger is often viewed as a precursor of aggressive behaviors,

which again indicates that people experience a ‘fight’ response after a threat to their honor.

To summarize, we posit that someone’s honor is threatened if they act (or are accused of

acting) in a way that deviates from moral rules in their community. The ensuing immoral reputation
 HONOR 18
creates a moral stigma and potential social exclusion. Such threats negatively impact an individual’s

self-esteem and need-to-belong and may foster fight, tend-and-befriend, or freeze responses (see

upper panel Figure 1). We are not aware of any theoretical model on honor that lays out such an

elaborate social psychological process from honor threats to psychological and behavioral

responses, and that connects the loss of honor to what happens to people when they lose their moral

reputation. We will refer to this model as the REsponses to MOral DEviance model (REMODE

model).

Thus far, we have focused on those who are considered morally deviant, or dishonored, in a

given community. In the lower panel of the REMODE model (Figure 1) we will now turn to the role

of the associates of this moral deviant and their responses.

Gap 2: The role of the associates of the deviant

In contrast to the social psychological literature on honor, in most of the feminist literature on

honor and honor-related violence, as well as governmental or NGO documentation, the focus lies on

aggressive responses from the associates of the dishonorable person, not on aggression from the

dishonored person him or herself. Honor-related violence is often related to honor killings, or

killing in order to restore honor. Killing a deviant “is not the only crime committed in the name of

honour, but simply the most violent. Others include early and forced marriage, the sisters and

daughters being sold into slavery, mutilation, and the deprivation of freedom, education, or

friendship” (Gill, 2006, p.1). Taken together this means that violent acts carried out in the name of

honor are often committed by associates of the deviant to protect or restore their own honor, or the

honor of members of their group (e.g., family). Interestingly, in the psychological literature on

honor there is hardly any interest in investigating the situation that the associates of the dishonored

person are in or what motivates their, often perceived as inexplicable, behavior. In this section we

add a second part to the REMODE model in which we elaborate on the social-psychological process

that the associates go through (lower panel Figure 1).

Stigmas do not necessarily stick merely to a moral deviant, they are often also transferred to

those who are associated with that individual. This is called a stigma-by-association or a courtesy
 HONOR 19
stigma (Goffman, 1963). Returning to our examples, the fictitious adulterous Turkish woman could

be stigmatized and shunned herself, but also her parents, siblings, cousins, children, her husband,

and other in-laws could be stigmatized in their community. Likewise, a fraudulent scientist could be

stigmatized, rejected, and excluded as an individual, but also his colleagues, his students, his

university - even his family might face stigmatization by association in their academic community.

In these cases the moral reputation of people who are associated with the deviant individual is at

stake, as they also face stigmatization and potential exclusion. Why is that the case? Associates

could or should have known about the misconduct and reported or prevented it, or they should have

had better control over the individual they are associated with (Condry, 2007; Bos, Pryor, Reeder, &

Stutterheim, 2013). Those seen as close to the deviant are seen as partly responsible for the deviant

behavior because they are perceived either to be responsible by commission (they themselves might

benefit from the deviant behavior) or are perceived to be responsible by omission (they could have

prevented the deviant behavior; Lickel, Schmader, & Hamilton, 2003). For example, in case of the

fictitious adulterous Turkish woman people may ask whether her relatives, her husband, and other

in-laws are partly responsible for not being able to satisfy this woman’s needs and guard her from

immoral behavior. Or how can an academic commit fraud while his colleagues were right there to

see what he was doing? Where they somehow involved in the deviant behavior? Those stigmatized

by association face a similar treatment as those who are actually directly responsible for their

stigma, and thus have similar psychological responses to their potential exclusion, however might

result in different behavioral responses. We will elaborate on this issue in the section on

responsibility on page 21.

Responding to stigma/exclusion by association. We think that threats to one’s inclusion

resulting from the morally deviant behavior of one’s associates requires different responses than

threats from exclusion for which one is the direct cause. In cases of stigma-by-association other

mechanisms might be more effective, such as distancing from the deviant or apologizing for their

behavior. What the associates most likely will do is use their coercive power in the form of “threats

and punishments to gain compliance” (Tedeschi, Smith III & Brown jr., 1974). Effective tactics that
 HONOR 20
are used to diminish the stigma for a deviant’s group members are (1) publicly offering apologies in

name of the deviant’s group, and (2) distancing from a deviant’s moral transgressions or from the

deviant, by expelling them from the in-group are (Eidelman & Biernat, 2003; Van Leeuwen, Van

den Bosch, Castano, & Hopman, 2010; Hutchison et al 2008; Van der Toorn, Ellemers & Doosje,

2014; Ginat, 1997; 1983). As we have noted before, groups in so-called honor cultures employ such

tactics to distance themselves from the deviant and prevent or restore reputational damage, for

example in the form of expelling the deviant from the community or by killing the deviant (e.g.,

Ermers, 2018; Gill, 2006; Mahdi, 1986). We see very similar tactics in other cultures as well. Moral

deviants are often imprisoned, which is in fact a form of excluding the deviant from the community

to prevent further harm to its members (Bentham, 1830). Similarly, seriously misbehaving

employees or members of an organization face immediate dishonorable discharge or expulsion as a

member (e.g., Jones, 1973). In any case, the form of distancing should appear to the outside

community as definitive. Condry (2007) found that the principle of ‘hate the sin, love the sinner’, in

which people distance themselves from their convicted relative’s behavior, while maintaining the

relationship, was not effective. To illustrate, the family of the fictitious Turkish woman are likely to

take measures to publicly show their disagreement with her behavior, and, similarly, the colleagues

of the fraudulent academic will issue public statements stressing the fact that they had nothing to do

with the academic’s activities and knew nothing about them.

Important factors for threat to one’s reputation for both deviants and associates

Having sketched how people, both deviants and their associates, respond to threats of losing

honor, i.e. their reputation for morality, we would now like to elaborate on three factors that

determine whether and to what degree an individual is seen as potentially dishonored. These are

responsibility, actuality of misconduct, and outside awareness of the misconduct2. Having

2
These three factors are evident in the six situational contexts that are used for engaging in honor-related violence
(Ermers et al., 2010; Ermers, 2018): (1) Responding to moral insults and attacks, (2) Preventing moral misbehavior by
in-group affiliates, (3) Concealing one's own moral misbehavior or that of a in-group member, (4) Protecting ingroup
members against morally deviant behavior (such as rape and harassment), (5) Restoring one's own or the in-group's (or
family's) moral reputation. A sixth form for honor related violence are community’s social sanctions (stigmatization and
exclusion) directed against members of a deviant's in-group.
 HONOR 21
knowledge on these three factors can aid the study of the social and psychological processes

underlying behavior across cultures, but may also aid practitioners in determining the position of

actors in conflict situations.

Factor 1: Responsibility

People can become stigmatized, rejected and excluded based on their own moral

misconduct, or due to the misconduct of someone with whom they are associated. Such cases are

distinguished as primary stigma and stigma-by-association (Pryor et al., 2012; Goffman, 1963)

respectively. The strength and nature of the association (family members, friends, co-workers, etc.)

are to some extent predictive of whether secondary stigmatization occurs and if so to what degree

affiliates are socially excluded (such as avoidance, devaluation, and abuse; Condry, 2007).

Responsibility plays a role in both primary stigma and stigma-by-association. First, the

degree to which actions are perceived as volitional relates to perceptions of responsibility (e.g.,

Monahan & Hood, 1976). For example, people who acquire a lung disease as the result of smoking

are more stigmatized than those who get sick as the result of work conditions or an accident (Jones

et al., 1984; Decety, Echols & Correll, 2010). Both children and individuals who suffer from mental

illnesses are punished less severely for transgressions than people considered in the possession of

their full mental capacities. Penal codes as well as customary law systems have provisions for

suspects who are (temporarily) not responsible for their behavior, for example because they

committed the act in a fit of anger or during a psychosis (Fontaine, 2009). Even in communities

who are considered to have a so-called honor culture not all misbehavior affects one’s moral

reputation. For example, a Turkish family whose mentally disabled daughter or son transgresses

sexual moral norms will not be considered dishonored in their community (Ermers et al., 2010;

Ermers, 2018), however people might blame family members for not guarding and protecting him

or her enough.

Second, the degree of stigmatization by association is determined by two factors: (1) The

assumed degree of closeness to the perpetrator, also referred to as the perceived entitativity of the

social bonds between members in a group. The closer the perceived bonds, the more responsible
 HONOR 22
associates are judged to be for the behavior of the deviant. And, (2) the assumed degree of

responsibility for or authority over the deviant (e.g., Condry, 2007; Lickel et al., 2003; Weiner,

2001). Friendships, colleagues, and neighborhood relationships, while varying in closeness are often

not associated with having the responsibility for an associated individual’s behavior, whereas parent

and supervisor relationships are. To illustrate, for the academic misconduct of a researcher the

immediate research group as well as the dean of the school would suffer more from stigma by

association than researchers from other groups or related disciplines, but still other research groups

in the faculty or in the same discipline would like to publicly disapprove of the misconduct and

distance themselves from the research group the misconduct occurred in.

The distinction between a primary stigma and a stigma-by-association is present in the

existing literature on honor, albeit rather implicitly. Research on honor in the populations in the

Middle East and adjacent areas focuses on something that is called family honor (Rodriguez

Mosquera et al., 2002a; Van Osch et al., 2013; Ermers et al., 2010), which some define as

“interdependence based on shared social image” (Rodriguez Mosquera, 2016, p. 438). In our view

families possess honor, i.e. a reputation for trustworthiness and integrity, when none of their

members, men and women alike, are known (or believed) to be involved in non-moral behavior.

Individual family members are supposed to protect their family from receiving a stigma by

association by not performing immoral conduct as an individual, but also monitoring the behavior

of fellow family members. While current research often links family honor in non-western

communities exclusively to the proper moral conduct of women (for a recent overview see e.g.

Tokiharu, Mayeda & Vijaykumar, 2016) one could argue that the honor of the entire family as well

as that of all individual family members, men, women and children, is at stake if one family

member, man or woman, morally misbehaves. Please note that that not only the social unit of

families can have a moral reputation but other social units possess honor just as well (e.g., groups of

close friends, political parties, work teams), as illustrated in the example of the academic

colleagues.

Factor 2: Actuality of misconduct

 HONOR 23
Dishonor is not necessarily the consequence of factual moral misconduct alone, it can also

be based on the mere suspicion of misconduct. Being unjustly or falsely accused of misconduct

leads to defamation (i.e., accusations of misconduct without clarity about whether someone actually

misbehaved; e.g., Shuy 2009; Jones 2003), and can have similar consequences as factual moral

misconduct (e.g., Grounds, 2004).

So, the fictitious Turkish woman could be stigmatized, rejected and ostracized in her

community based on the fact that she committed adultery, but she could also face stigmatization in

her community when some people are merely accusing her of adultery and many others believe

them. Likewise, a scientist could lose his/her scientific reputation either because it was proven that

s/he committed fraud (i.e., clear data fabrication), or that it is merely suspected that s/he committed

fraud (i.e., his/her data have unlikely outcomes or suspicious patterns).

Even though actual moral misconduct and alleged misconduct may have similar

consequences for moral reputations, it is important to distinguish between these two cases because

these threats might require different responses. If someone’s misconduct is widely established, one

can flat-out deny against all odds (Van Leeuwen et al., 2010), while others use ‘act adjustment’

tactics in order to diminish the seriousness of the incident, or ‘actor adjustment’ to downplay their

own role in it (Condry, 2007; Ditton, 1977), or exaggerate the victim’s part (Adams-Price, Dalton &

Sumrall, 2004; Anderson, Beattie & Spencer, 2001). If someone is falsely accused of misconduct

some of the above mentioned strategies may be counterproductive as there are still possibilities to

retain one’s reputation for being a moral person. For example, engaging in act and actor adjustment

strategies could make one look ‘more guilty’ than is actually the case.

Interestingly, the majority of social psychological studies on honor only look into allegations

of misconduct, and do not study the responses to threatened honor after actual misconduct. This is

understandable as it is very difficult to experimentally manipulate someone to behave in an immoral

fashion in a controlled environment (e.g., Vonasch et al., 2013; for exceptions see the classic study

by Milgram, 1963, or studies on unethical decision making, e.g., Shalvi et al., 2011). In most

studies, therefore honor threats are created by insulting or falsely accusing participants. Participants
 HONOR 24
often either imagine to be insulted (Vandello & Cohen, 2004), are actually insulted by a confederate

or experimenter (Cohen et al., 1996), or are accused of misconduct (Uskul et al., 2015). Few studies

have distinguished between moral and non-moral insults (Goetz et al., 2006). Although often not

explicitly mentioned, many of the insults used are of a moral nature and suggest lack of integrity,

honesty, or loyalty (e.g., “backstabber”, Shafa et al., 2015; Uskul et al., 2015).

Especially in the case that one is merely accused of deviant behavior one should respond to

these accusations. However, whether or not to respond to accusations is a moral problem in itself:

“if he responds, the affront can be denied and he can be declared touchy, quarrelsome and therefore

ridiculous; if he does not respond, he can be made to appear cowardly and therefore dishonoured”

(Pitt-Rivers 1966, 28). Here Pitt-Rivers refers to the importance of an appropriate and adequate

response: failing to react proportionately to a serious attack or a slanderous insult is in any

community considered evidence of cowardice (Ermers, 2018). One has failed to defend or protect

oneself and, more importantly, their group, and thus acquires a reputation of disloyalty, which by

many is considered a moral characteristic (e.g., Graham, et al., 2013). Cowardice is a form of

misconduct for which an individual along with his in-group are likely to be stigmatized and

ostracized (Bond, 2004; Costa & Kahn 2004; Douglas, 1998; Walsh 2014). Naming someone a

coward – or a deserter – is a negative moral judgment and likely to harm the victim’s social life and

that of his family members (Fantina, 2006). Individuals who respond to an insult in an adequate and

proportional way, or merely show the readiness or an intention to do so (even when they are much

weaker than the insulter), evidence they are not a coward. Responding vehemently, yet

proportionally is ‘honorable’, because not reacting, or not reacting strong enough, might be seen as

sign of cowardice, which not merely damages one’s social status (Banks, 2010), but makes one

seem immoral (Ermers, 2018).3 For this reason, cowards, e.g. people who do not adequately

respond to a moral insult or a physical attack, risk their ‘mort sociale’ (Bourdieu, 1972). Even

3
Ermers (2018) argues that fear of the moral cowardice stigma, is one leading motive for a raped woman’s family to kill
her rapist. By killing him her family proves they are not cowardly, and that she was innocent. In this way they maintain
(or restore) their moral reputation.
 HONOR 25
handicapped or otherwise weak people can show non-cowardice, by expressing their intention to

take action.

Factor 3: Outside awareness of the moral misconduct

Finally, the misconduct on which dishonor is based is either known or unknown to the

outside world. If the misconduct is unknown to others, individuals face potential stigmatization and

its consequences, whereas if the misconduct is known stigmatization is an almost evident outcome

(e.g., stigma dimension of concealability; Jones, 1984). Here, we need to differentiate between the

immediate environment (one's associates, for example family members or the academic department)

and the larger community (e.g., the village population, the university, or the discipline). To

illustrate, if no one in the larger community is aware of the fact that the fictitious Turkish woman

cheated on her husband, her reputation for trustworthiness and integrity and, hence, her honor are

not damaged. Even if her family members are aware of the adultery but decide to keep this

information behind closed doors, her moral reputation in society is not damaged, nor is that of her

family or her in-laws. However, if the misconduct is known to society, the woman as well as her

family and in-laws will cease to be respected in the community and are likely to be treated

accordingly. The same goes for a scientist who secretly fabricates data, but whose university board

helps him cover up in order to prevent damage to the university and other academic circles in a

broader sense. So one’s honor, or reputation for morality, is only actually threatened when the

misconduct is known in the community. Of course when only individuals from the deviant's

immediate environment are aware of the misconduct, his or her self-esteem and other needs may be

affected as well, as are ingroup relationships, and certain measures are likely to be taken in order to

ensure the deviant behavior is not repeated and that information about the misconduct will not leak

out.

These three factors determine if the honor of one or more individuals is at risk and to what

extent they will be stigmatized and/or excluded in the community. We also believe that these factors

determine what an individual could or should do to either prevent being stigmatized and excluded or
 HONOR 26
to restore one’s honor and alleviate oneself from the social burden of the stigma. The combination

of factors can aid in the more systematic study of honor-related responses.

Gap 3: A systematic understanding of how cultural differences in honor-related responses

come about

In our REMODE model we describe a social-psychological process of how (an accusation

of) moral misconduct can lead to the loss of honor, stigmatization, exclusion and their ensuing

psychological and behavioral responses. The social psychological literature on honor, however, has

produced many studies indicating differences in both psychological and behavioral responses

between individuals from ‘honor and non-honor cultures’. How can we unite the above proposed

process with the abundance of observed ‘cultural’ differences? There are reasons for why

researchers have observed relatively consistent differences in responses to situations across different

communities, and have identified this ‘cultural syndrome’ of honor. In this section we indicate

where and how in the REMODE model cultural differences can emerge. In doing so we

acknowledge that this process may be affected by the cultural environment one is in and allow for

more systematic and informed investigations of cultural differences in responses to honor threats.

We propose that there are three ways in which cultural environments may shape the

REMODE model: First, cultural differences in what sort of behavior is considered immoral, second,

cultural differences in norms on how communities deal with deviant group members, and third,

cultural differences in the degree of awareness of one’s moral reputation.

Cultural difference #1: What is considered immoral conduct?

First of all, we propose that there are differences between communities in what kind of

moral misconduct triggers this process of stigmatization and rejection. Psychological theories on

morality acknowledge that culture plays an important role for morality (Graham et al., 2013;

Graham, Meindl, Beall, Johnson, & Zhang, 2016; Rai & Fiske, 2011; Shweder, Much, Mahapatra,

& Park, 1997). There is considerable variety in whom groups consider to be moral persons

(Vauclair, Wilson, & Fischer, 2014), and what groups consider to be moral or immoral behavior

(e.g., Ellemers et al., 2013; Miller, Bersoff, & Harwood, 1990). Various theories on morality argue
 HONOR 27
that there is moral pluralism, such that there are different perceptions across communities of

morality (e.g., Schein & Gray, 2015), or that specific social contexts and communities differ in the

way that they emphasize certain components/principles of morality (Carnes, Lickel, & Janoff-

Bulman, 2015; Haidt, Koleva, Motyl, Iyer, Wojcik & Ditto, 2013; Haidt & Joseph, 2004; Shweder,

Much, Mahapatra, & Park, 1997).

It is thus difficult to pinpoint behaviors that are considered moral and immoral in all human

communities. There are plenty of examples where one behavior is considered the most immoral

behavior in one community but acceptable or even required in another (Fiske & Rai, 2015).

Homosexual activities are condemned in many communities all over the world, yet same-sex sexual

activities – even marriages – are allowed in communities in other societies. Pedophilia, (i.e. sex of

adults with minors) is by and large condemned in mainstream communities in the Western world

but there are communities where child marriages and marriages of adults with children are common

and considered an acceptable practice in spite of legal impediments (Unicef.org). Also, virtually all

human communities consider harming or even killing a human being immoral and the perpetrators

as dangerous for the ingroup. However, in certain subcommunities (e.g., gangs, the military, or

terrorist organizations) killing other humans, in particular outgroup members, is considered part of

one’s purpose.

The origin of this differential emphasis on certain morals may come from a variety of

factors, such as social (e.g., kinship structures, religion) and ecological factors (e.g. high threat

environments; Graham et al., 2016). One such social factor, patriarchy, has been often used as an

explanation of why honor-related violence against women, occurs in for example the Middle-East

and Central Asia (e.g., Gill, Strange, & Roberts, 2014; Sev’er, 2005). A specific form of honor-

related violence occurs in these regions, namely intrafamilial honor killings (referred to as Type II

honor killings in Ermers, 2018). These honor killings against women and girls, often reported on in

sociological, anthropological, and feminist literature (Sev’er & Yurdakul, 2001), are a well-

publicized phenomenon in which killing in a specific context is regarded as a means to restore

honor (for an overview, see Tokiharu, Mayeda & Vijaykumar, 2016). This type of violence is
 HONOR 28
‘gendered’ because the underlying moral norms to which one is responding may differ for women

and men (Cihangir, 2013). Communities in those prototypical ‘honor cultures’ have strong moral

codes on how women should behave and deviations from these prescribed behavioral patterns are

met with violence. In this theory, honor is not regarded as an extant concept, but as a mere pretext

for men to oppress women. Yet in regard to communities where intrafamilial honor killings occur it

is still a fact that morally deviant acts of one member, male or female, can cause a stigma on all

family members, regardless of gender or age, potentially leading to their social rejection, exclusion

and ostracism. In its proper sense therefore, honor related violence is directed against individuals

who (allegedly) morally misbehave.

In the current paper we thus assume that the input of the REMODE model, the immoral

conduct that triggers the process, may differ across communities. This also means that if we are

interested in studying this psychological process across groups, and potentially compare groups, we

need to establish that the input in the process is similar across the groups under study. The current

social-psychological research on cultural differences in honor and its psychological and behavioral

consequences does not examine the equivalence of input in this process. Often, researchers take one

trigger of aggression common to an honor context, have people in an honor and non-honor context

respond to that trigger and compare the responses across groups. Given the currently proposed idea

that such triggers might have very different meanings in these groups (potentially moral versus non-

moral) would lead to different conclusions. The conclusion is often that people in honor cultures

respond more emotionally and aggressively to triggers, whereas we would suggest that different

input results in different output, without having any implications for the underlying psychological

process. In other words, such research could be re-interpreted as not having found differences in

psychological and behavioral responses to violations of the ‘honor code’ (i.e. to immoral conduct),

but mere differences between communities in what kind of behaviors are considered (im)moral

conduct.

In many social psychological studies it might seem that it is not someone’s moral reputation

being threatened (and measured) but their reputation of competence – and, hence, their self-esteem.
 HONOR 29
For example, in the work by Dov Cohen, men are often insulted (e.g., participants are called an

“asshole”; Cohen et al., 1996) which the researchers interpret as referring to masculinity (probably

because it is a derogatory predominantly used against males). People thus also respond to, what

some would call, more competence related insults (also see Rodriguez Mosquera et al., 2008). This

seems especially the case for masculinity. At an abstract level masculinity seems to be more related

to concepts of agency and competence than to the concept of morality (e.g., Abele & Wojciszke,

2007). At a more contextualized level masculinity, especially in so-called honor cultures, seems to

be moralized, such that acting in a masculine way is necessary in order to be considered a good and

worthy male member of the community (e.g., Banks, 2010; Fido & Zahid, 2004; Gilmore, 1990;

Greil, 2010). This for example implies that men need to respond to those challenging their manhood

(e.g., Barnes, Brown, & Osterman, 2012; Cohen & Nisbett, 1994). Failing to do so results in

stigmatization, for example Cohen and colleagues describe that males in the South of the US "were

[…] likely to stigmatize men [...] who did not respond with violence, criticizing them for being 'not

much of a man' if they failed to fight or shoot the person who challenged or affronted them" (Cohen

et al., 1996, p. 946). We suggest to interpret these remarks as referring to cowardice, a moral stigma

(Ermers, 2018).

Even though some types of misconduct are disproved of in several communities, the severity

with which it is disproved of or seen as threatening can also differ between communities (e.g.,

Severance et al., 2013). In most societies chastity is seen as an indication for morality and hence

honor. Yet what sort of behavior evidences chastity strongly differs from one community to the

other. For example, in one community not having premarital sex (and keeping one's virginity until

marriage) is a matter of morality as it is regarded as an indication for chastity (Ermers, 2018) and

those (mainly women) who appear not to have the intention to remain a virgin until marriage, are

accused of unchaste behavior and experience stigma and exclusion (Ylivuori, 2015). In a second

type of community, not having premarital sex is a societal ideal, without there being serious social

consequences when people fail to attain it. In yet a third type of community, having premarital sex

has little social consequences, and preserving one's virginity until marriage therefore has little moral
 HONOR 30
value. These moral values can change over time (e.g., Bloom, 2010), as nowadays, in western

countries, young people can even get being bullied for not having had sexual intercourse, or ‘having

done “it”’. Researchers, comparing morally deviant behaviors across groups, should thus not only

check that the deviant behavior is considered immoral in all groups, but also that the intensity with

which it is considered deviant is comparable across the studied groups.

Cultural difference #2: Norms on how to deal with moral deviance

Second, we propose that communities differ in the norms they have for how individuals

should respond to honor threats and/or to morally deviant group members and/or their associates.

We think that every individual confronted with an honor threat will experience similar

psychological responses and behavioral intentions (as described above), but he or she also has to

function within a particular social context, in a particular community, and thus has only a limited a

culturally determined bandwidth of acceptable behavioral responses to choose from (e.g., cultural

constraints and affordances; Bond, 2004; Poortinga & Soudijn, 2002). Behavioral outcomes are

often not only determined by distal cultural constraints and affordances, but also by more proximal

situational constraints and affordances. For example, Americans are generally thought to be less

conforming than Japanese (Kim & Markus, 1999), but only in situations that allow for such non-

conforming behavior (Yamagishi, Hashimoto, & Schug, 2008). Also the emotion of pride is

generally expressed less intensely by Asians than by Westerners, but only in situations where there

are certain social constraints (Van Osch, Zeelenberg, & Breugelmans, 2016). The appropriate

response to moral deviance thus depends on the local norms of the community, and the particular

social situation a responder is in. Furthermore, whether a response is considered appropriate and

proportionate according to those norms is a cultural factor as well, as it depends on its evaluation by

community members.

In sum, we propose that across communities people condemn immoral behavior by

distancing themselves from such behavior as well as their deviant affiliate in order to keep their

own moral reputation free from stain. However, the form this distancing may take depends on the
 HONOR 31
norms and situational constraints present in the community (e.g., shunning, imprisonment,

dishonorable discharge, honor killing).

Cultural difference #3: Degree of awareness of one’s moral reputation

Finally, to explain differences between cultures described as honor and non-honor cultures

we draw on cultural differences in the strength of social norms and the degree of sanctioning in

communities that may lead to a heightened awareness of one’s moral reputation. Cultural

differences in the strength of social norms and sanctioning are referred to as variations in cultural

tightness or looseness. The tightness-looseness dimension identifies structural differences between

communities in (1) the extent to which norms in a community are clear and pervasive, and (2) in the

extent to which deviance from those norms is tolerated and sanctioned (Gelfand, Nishii, & Raver,

2006; Triandis, 1989). Certain cultural groups that are seen as prototypical ‘honor cultures’ score

relatively high on tightness (e.g., Egypt, India, Jordan, Morocco, Turkey, Pakistan; Mrazek et al.,

2013; Gelfand et al., 2012; Uz, 2015).

The strength of norms and sanctioning is suggested to lead to a certain level of ‘felt

accountability’, such that members of tight communities (where norms and sanctioning are strong)

are more aware of others in the community evaluating their actions and expect violations to be met

with strong punishment. In other words, we would argue that they are more aware of their moral

reputation and the fact that others keep track of their moral reputation. This felt accountability has

been suggested to lead to higher cognitive accessibility of norms regarding one’s own behavior, but

also the behavior of others (Gelfand et al., 2006).

Such higher cognitive accessibility of certain psychological constructs has also been labelled

hypercognition. Experiences are hypercognized if “through heightened cultural elaboration [they]

become highly conceptually salient and thus tend to be centers of recurrent attentional focus for

individual culture bearers” (Throop, 2005, p. 506). The term stems from anthropological research

by Robert Levy among Tahitians. He observed that among a community in Tahiti some concepts

were “controlled to by being known in obsessive detail” (Levy, 1984, p. 408). In the case of

Tahitians, according to Levy, this was the psychological experience of anger. If a concept is
 HONOR 32
hypercognized in a particular community it usually indicates (1) that there are relatively many

differentiated terms available to describe the concept, (2) that the concept is thought of as very

important, and (3) that the concept triggers very specific thought and action repertoires (Frijda,

Markam, Sato, & Wiers, 1995; Parkinson, Fischer, & Manstead, 2004; Wong & Tsai, 2007). These

aspects seem evident if we look at research regarding so-called honor cultures. For example, the

Turkish language has a multitude of terms to describe honor-related aspects for which there are no

exact equivalents in other languages (namus, şeref, onur, and gurur; Ermers, 2018; Uskul & Cross,

2018). We thus propose that communities differ in the extent to which an individual’s moral

reputation or certain potentially immoral behaviors are top-of-mind (Taylor & Fiske, 1978).

We think that there are indications that people from so-called honor cultures have a higher

awareness of having to preserve one's honor, or moral reputation, and are thus more vigilant

towards potential moral violations and threats to their reputation than people from communities

where this is less salient. We believe that the salience of ‘honor’ is equivalent to a relatively high

awareness of one’s moral reputation and results in a constant guarding of that reputation (i.e., a

vigilance to prevent the loss of honor; Shafa, Harinck, Ellemers, & Beersma, 2015). This would

suggest that individuals would have lower thresholds for identifying threats to their moral reputation

and that they could respond more intensely to those threats. We also believe that this is the effect

that most social psychological studies on honor have been picking up on. If one is in a heightened

state of awareness and vigilance regarding one’s moral reputation, then perceived threats to one’s

reputation, whether moral or not, might be perceived as already threatening and thus need to be

responded to. We think this is the reason why most social psychological studies find that

respondents from groups that are labelled as ‘honor cultures’ perceive insults to be more threatening

as evidenced by them reporting to experience more shame and anger (e.g., Rodriguez Mosquera et

al., 2000), and being more likely to respond or aggress towards these threats (e.g., Cohen et al.,

1996; Van Osch et al., 2013). Currently, there is however no direct empirical studies assessing the

salience of one’s moral reputation across communities. There is however work examining the

temporary activation of reputational concerns and its effects on perceptions of agency and the
 HONOR 33
recognition of honor-related words (Novin & Oyserman, 2016). These studies are a first indication

that activating an ‘honor’-mindset in a ‘non-honor’ community (all participants were Northern

European Americans) can steer cognition into a ‘prototypical honor response’.

Tight cultures exist in environments that face or have faced ecological or human-made

threats, and lack natural resources, which calls for strong norms and punishment to ascertain

cooperation (Gelfand et al., 2011; Mrazek et al., 2013; Uz, 2015). Coincidentally, it is argued that

‘honor cultures’ also arise in harsh environments with few resources (Nowak, Gelfand, Borkowski,

Cohen, & Hernandez, 2016; for an overview see Uskul et al., in press). For example, researchers

find consistent differences between the US North and South in the extent to which men are prone to

violence, determined by examining homicide rates (Messner, 1983; Nisbett & Cohen, 1996), having

people respond to offenses (Cohen, Nisbett, Bowdle, & Schwarz, 1996), or measuring the approval

of interpersonal violence (Hayes & Lee, 2005). The honor culture in the South of the US is argued

to be a remnant of the herding population that originally inhabited this region (Grosjean, 2010;

Henry, 2009; Nisbett & Cohen, 1996). Herding life relies on the ability to protect oneself and ones

property from external threats, hence responding violently to such threats is an adaptive strategy.

Similar patterns of aggressive responses between a herding and a farming community were found in

Turkey (Uskul & Over, 2014). These harsh environments often co-occur with the lack of law

enforcement. ‘Honor cultures’ seem to arise in lawless environments where it is functional to be

known as someone who is not to be messed with (Cohen & Leung, 2012). So, the need to protect or

defend oneself and one’s family and property from outside threats, may make people more vigilant

towards threats and respond to threats more intensely. A study on cultural tightness found that

Southern states in the US, which are also considered honor cultures, are more tight than Northern

and Western states, and the authors suggest that tightness and honor are positively related

(Harrington & Gelfand, 2014).

We propose that not only historical threats trigger the heightened awareness of one’s moral

reputation but that this can also be triggered by incidents. For example, after the conviction of a

male childcare worker for abusing dozens of children in a daycare center, many people, including
 HONOR 34
parents, got suspicious of men working in this professional area (e.g., Murray, 1996). As a result,

out of fear for mistrust (and false accusations) male day care workers are rare (Van Polanen,

Colonessi, Tavecchio, Blokhuis, & Fukkink, 2017; Weinbach, 1987). Likewise, the #MeToo

discussions on the practice of unpunished harassment of women by men in influential positions, not

only makes people all over the world aware of this phenomenon, but also wary and fearful of

misinterpretations of innocent behavior. The so-called Pence effect (named after US vice

president’s Mike Pence’s personal rule of never dining alone with women) describes how men in

higher positions avoid contact with women to avoid (false) allegations due to the #MeToo

movement (Tan & Porzecanski, 2018). As a final example of how an incident can temporarily

activate the awareness of one’s moral reputation, we refer to the fraud case of a Dutch professor in

social psychology (Callaway, 2011). This affair has not only significantly by-association affected

the reputations of the professor’s former colleagues (Hussinger & Pellens, 2017), students and co-

authors, but drew social psychology in general in a bad light (see also Pellegrini, 2017). As a result,

now social psychologists have become more alert and aware of their moral scientific reputations,

perhaps more than people from other disciplines (Nosek et al., 2015). We believe that this illustrates

that a heightened awareness of one’s moral reputation in a given community can also be triggered

by temporary incidents, rather than the heightened awareness being a stable trait of the community.

To summarize, we posited a basic process underlying responses to threats to one’s moral

reputation. We have highlighted that cultural differences may emerge as a consequence of

differences in what is considered immoral conduct, differences in what are considered appropriate

responses to reputation threats, and differences in how aware people are of their moral reputation.

We think these three systematic cultural influences cover a lot of ground, but are completely open to

the idea that there may be more.

Conclusion

In this paper we identified three gaps in the literature on honor and aimed to fill these gaps.

First, we provided a social-psychological model underlying honor-related behavior (filling Gap 1),

the REMODE model. In this model we defined the loss of honor as the loss of one’s moral
 HONOR 35
reputation and argued that this leads to psychological and behavioral responses from preventing the

loss of one’s inclusion. This model also explains the psychological and behavioral responses typical

for honor-related violence committed by the associates of the dishonored person (filling Gap 2).

Finally, we indicated three possible systematic ways in which culture might shape this process, each

related to well-known phenomena in psychology, but also related to observed cultural differences

(filling Gap 3). Our approach is different from current approaches in the field because we do not

define honor as a cultural variable, but in a manner that can be understood from psychologies across

the globe. Trying to understand honor from a non-cultural perspective allows researchers in various

research areas to connect honor-related processes to well-developed fields of study (stigma, social

exclusion, morality), opens up avenues for systematically studying the impact of culture on the

social-psychological process we proposed to underlie honor-related responses, and may aid

professionals from various cultural backgrounds in dealing with cases of honor-related violence.

Systematic study of how culture influences honor-related responses

The REMODE model provides researchers in the areas of honor, morality, and stigma with

plenty of testable hypotheses. The processes for the deviant and the associates of that deviant are

well established in psychology and thus do not need immediate empirical validation. Therefore, one

of the first steps to substantiate our theoretical proposal with empirical evidence would be to study

the three influences culture can have on the proposed social psychological processes. A good start

would for example be to qualitatively study why and when people in particular communities obtain

an immoral reputation, how the community and deviant should respond to that, and whether in so-

called honor cultures these responses actually differ from elsewhere. Subsequently, it would be

interesting to assess whether there are commonalities and differences in what is considered immoral

behavior. In doing so, one could systematically manipulate and compare the impact of different

types of immoral behaviors on one’s reputation and the ensuing responses from both the stigmatized

and the community (testing cultural difference #1). For example, one could compare the impact of

accusations of pedophilia in Turkey and the Netherlands (assumed to be seen as immoral in both
 HONOR 36
populations), with accusations of premarital sex (assumed immoral in some communities in Turkey,

relatively less so in the Netherlands).

One could also assess whether responses to moral deviance differ across communities but

that the underlying motives – exclusion, distancing – are similar (testing cultural difference #2). We

think that the most evident next step would be to test the third cultural difference, as this influence,

in our view, aligns with most current empirical work on honor. One could for example establish that

priming a heightened awareness of one’s moral reputation results in a faster detection of immoral

behavior, a larger fear of being judged and excluded by others, and stronger and severe intentions to

punish moral deviants on one’s ingroup.

There may be additional cultural factors that influence the social psychological process of

responding to moral deviance. A likely candidate may be that the degree to which individuals in

groups are perceived as bonded together may differ across communities. If there is indeed a cultural

difference in perceived entitativity, then the degree to which associates are stigmatized-by-

association and thus need to act may also differ across communities. We know for example that

cultural groups differ in the structure and function of the nuclear and extended family (e.g.,

Georgas, Christakopoulou, Poortinga, Angleitner, Goodwin, & Charalambous, 1997). Intimate

groups such as families’ entitativity scores are higher than those of other groups (Rüsch et al., 2014)

and family members are attributed a larger collective responsibility for individual moral deviance

compared to other groups (Denson et al., 2006). However, we are not aware of any cross-cultural

studies suggesting stable differences in this perceived entitativity, and thus, for now, refrain from

including it as a fourth influence of culture.

Eliminate bias in studies

The new approach presented in the current paper argues that in order to understand the

process underlying honor-related responses we should avoid cultural biases in setting up studies. It

is now often unclear whether found cultural differences are due to actual differences in

psychological processes between bearers of different cultures or due to differences in the meaning

of materials. In other words, currently it is unclear if and where in the psychological process culture
 HONOR 37
affects responses to actual honor threats. In order to avoid such bias (for example using an insult

which is, in a general sense, considered threatening for one’s moral reputation in one but not in the

comparison sample) it is important to first investigate what the moral standards and norms are in the

targeted communities, what sort of behavior is often taken to indicate a moral transgression, where

there is common ground and where there is not.

One of the reasons that researchers speak of ‘cultures of honor’, and of ‘cultures of dignity’

or ‘face’, is that in those so-called honor cultures people have a high usage or, perhaps, well-defined

semantic conceptualization of the term honor. The English noun honor and its translations (e.g.,

onur, şeref, namus in Turkish and sharaf and ‘ird in Arabic) are often used as a starting point for

research (e.g., Gelfand et al., 2015; Stewart, 1994). For example, a study by Cross and colleagues

(2014) investigated differences in the meaning of the noun honor between people from countries

labeled as honor and non-honor cultures. They asked Northern American students and Turkish

students about their respective interpretations of the words ‘honor’ and ‘onur’. These students freely

generated a number of associations. The representations Turkish students had were more complex

than those of the US students. However, terms used for similar phenomena across languages can

have different semantic meanings, which could result in different psychological meaning (e.g., Van

Osch, Breugelmans, Zeelenberg, & Fontaine, 2013; Ermers, 2018). This implies that one should be

careful in translating terms for honor across cultural samples in quasi-experimental designs because

one could inadvertently trigger different psychological processes (for example comparing the

Turkish term ‘namus’ which refers specifically to a sexual moral reputation with the much less

specified English term ‘honor’; Kardam, 2005). Studies have shown in the past that scales that

include the word honor are statistically not equivalent across studied groups and thus that mean

level scores on these scales cannot be compared directly across samples (e.g., Smith et al., 2017).

Unfortunately, testing for equivalence of measurements across samples is not common practice in

the psychological study of honor. It is however common practice in studies on honor to compare

mean scores across samples, however not reaching scalar equivalence may indicate that conclusions

based on such comparisons can be false (e.g., Chen, 2008; He & Van de Vijver, 2012; Steenkamp &
 HONOR 38
Baumgartner 1998). We thus advise researchers to perform equivalence analyses when measuring

honor concerns or codes across cultural samples in order to avoid erroneous conclusions. The same

argument of course holds for scales developed to measure honor codes or concern for honor. These

measures are often developed in one particular context. For example, the concern for honor scale

was developed in Spain (Rodriguez Mosquera et al., 2002a) and the honor ideology for manhood

scale was developed in the South of the US (Barnes et al., 2012). These scales are subsequently

used to compare different cultural groups, for which it is unclear whether the scale measures similar

constructs in all samples (e.g., Van Osch et al., 2013). Before these scales are employed elsewhere

they should be content validated.

Another caveat is in place: the mere presence or absence of words in a particular language

however does not necessarily equal the presence or absence of psychological phenomena. For

instance, in the Dutch language there are two nouns to describe a benign form of envy (nijd) and a

malicious form of envy (afgunst) (this also seems to be the case for Polish and Thai). In the English

and Spanish languages there is only one noun to refer to envy, however, in terms of experience also

English and Spanish speakers differentiate between a positive and a negative form of envy (Van de

Ven, Zeelenberg, & Pieters, 2009; for similar phenomena see Breugelmans & Poortinga, 2006; Van

Dijk & Ouwerkerk, 2014). Transferred to the present discussion, this could imply that people can

experience dishonor, i.e. loss of moral reputation, without having terms to distinguish this

experience from other types of stigma, and thus that using non-equivalent terms across cultural

samples may bias results. Furthermore, in English daily usage, the noun reputation seems to have

replaced honor in the sense of moral reputation. For example, in discussions of instances of criminal

behavior as well as academic fraud, researchers use terms like ‘reputation’ and ‘reputational

damage’ (Fishman 2015; Jefferson-Jones, 2013) rather than combinations with honor.

Practical implications

Being able to better understand the concept of honor and the possibly ensuing honor-related

violence, also from a Western (non-honor) perspective, would help in dealing with honor-related

violence in various aspects. First of all, it would help to reduce stereotyping of so-called honor
 HONOR 39
groups. In Western society there is often moral outrage or ‘moral panic’ among majority members

over honor-related crimes by non-western minority members (Brenninkmeijer, 2018). This moral

panic is related to disproportiate responses, such as extreme fear and the perception of threat from

the evildoer but also the group at large, and more attention in the media than for other more

widespread problems. As a result, majority members do not only think that the perpetrator is

dangerous, but that for example Turkish men in general are dangerous for women (Brenninkmeijer,

2018). Educating people about how honor and honor-related responses can also be understood from

a Western perspective may thus reduce stereotyping.

Second, professionals across the globe deal with ‘honor-related violence’. With that we

mean violence in a broad sense which is defined by Westerners to describe conflicts among non-

western individuals in which to their understanding honor may play a role, or in which those

involved claim honor is a motive. For example, in the Netherlands the police, justice, and social

workers deal with cases in which non-western ‘honor’ plays a role (Janssen, 2017). Because often

those professionals have a background from ‘non-honor cultures’, they in fact have difficulties to

understand what an individual with a Turkish, Moroccan, Afghan or Kurdish background means

when he or she talks about honor. For professionals, there still is no “definition of honour-based

violence that is appropriate or relevant cross-culturally” (Gill, 2006, p. 2). This is problematic for

two reasons. First, if there is no definition how should professionals decide that a case is or is not

honor-related. Second, if the term honor is used, and we are aware that the term honor has a

different meaning across languages, how can a professional from a ‘non-honor’ background

understand what their clients are talking about? The presently ill-defined construct of honor has

trickled down to these professionals. They are informed that honor is a very complex notion, related

to ‘traditional’ cultures and fundamentally alien to Western culture, and thus difficult to understand

(as for example mentioned on the website of the Dutch police’s expertise center on honor related

violence). They are also made aware that conflicts of people over honor can ‘easily’ and

‘unexpectedly’ escalate to murder. Such information makes professionals wary of any actor in such

conflicts (which causes moral panic), feeling unable to understand the case at hand and thus not
 HONOR 40
knowing how to de-escalate such cases. If we can help these professionals understand that the loss

of honor is equivalent to a having an immoral reputation and help them translate such cases to

situations they could understand from their own perspective, they will be better able to understand

the actors’ motives and consequently de-escalate the conflict. In an ever globalizing world it is very

important that people across cultures are able to understand each other. De-exoticizing the concept

of honor, while acknowledging actual differences between communities, will allow people from

across cultures and communities to better understand each other. Qualitative analyses based on the

proposed REMODE model on police reports of cases of supposedly honor-related violence may

help professionals to deal with these cases better.

 HONOR 41
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Figure 1. REsponse to Moral Deviance model