Does the Culture of Honor do well in Poland?

This paper deals with the issue of honor culture in Poland. In a traditional honor culture, honorable men should be sensitive to situations where their honor is defiled. They should also be ready to defend their good name (Cohen and Nisbett, 1997), even if it means using violence. In such a culture women cannot actively defend their honor. The authors checked the gender role differences (both in actor and observer perspective) in attitudes towards honorable behaviors. The paper presents two experiments, analyzed with repeated ANOVA measures. In the first study, which is a replication of the research conducted by Szmajke (1999), men and women (N=156) evaluated a letter written by an "honorable" killer and a "dishonorable" thief (in two gender versions). The second study (N=146) replicated the results of the first one.The results confirm the traditional concept of the culture of honor as a permission for aggression used by men to defend their good name, in the eyes of both women and men. The use of violence by women in an analogues situation is evaluated negatively by both genders. Results shows that the general gender roles in Polish culture of honor keeps men as active user of violence to respond for the provacation. Women are not allowed to active violent defend of their honor.

A glorious warrior in war: Cross-cultural evidence of honor culture, social rewards for warriors, and intergroup conflict

Previous research has shown that honor culture and honor ideology enhance interpersonal and intergroup aggressiveness at the individual level. This study aimed to examine collective-level relationships among honor culture, social rewards for warriors, and intergroup conflict. To demonstrate these relationships, I used the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample, which contains data on 186 mainly preindustrial societies from all over the world. The analysis demonstrated that honor culture, which values males’ toughness and aggression, has a positive relationship with frequency of intergroup conflicts. In addition, social rewards (praise, prestige, and status) for warriors mediated the relationship between honor culture and frequency of intergroup conflict. These results imply that the collective-level processes of honor culture enhance intergroup conflicts through the social reputations of warriors who participate in war.

A Shared Identity

This chapter looks at the dissemination of these ethics by America’s colleges through honor codes, disciplinary measures, books, and classroom lessons. American schools became instrumental in establishing a commonality of thought and a sense of camaraderie based upon honor culture that helped to translate into unity during the Revolution. The lessons taught in classes and the rules that governed the colleges became a continuing guide and foundation for the progression of honor as an ethical concept throughout early America. This is the first study of its kind and shows how early college rules would directly impact the patriots’ behavior during the Revolution.

Social rewards: the basis for collaboration in honor cultures

Purpose The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to define social rewards, as acts and expressions which specifically signal respect, courtesy and benevolence to the other party, based on cultural scripts found in honor cultures. Second, to explore whether social rewards mitigate competitive aspirations and foster collaboration in competitive settings, with honor values being a culturally relevant mechanism for this effect. Design/methodology/approach This paper reports on two experiments assessing high-honor and low-honor culture participants’ aspirations and behavioral decisions. In study 1, participants described a personal situation where they were praised by close others (social reward) or praised themselves (control condition), before responding to a buyer/seller negotiation scenario. In study 2, participants were either complimented (social reward) or not complimented (control condition), before engaging in live competition with a confederate for monetary outcomes. Findings Both studies indicate that social rewards diminish competitive aspirations and offers among high-honor culture participants, but not among low-honor culture participants. Results of study 1 indicate that endorsement of honor values mediates this effect. In conclusion, social rewards can improve interactions with members of honor cultures. Research limitations/implications These studies advance our understanding of cultural differences in negotiations and provide insight into social rewards as one of the mechanisms necessary to successfully manage intercultural negotiations and collaboration. Future research should address the effect of social rewards on self-worth and empowerment. Originality/value This research is the first to shed light on the relevance and importance of social rewards as a device to facilitate social interactions in honor cultures.

'I knew him in Padua’: London theatre and early modern constructions of erudition.

This paper examines one aspect of the two-way cultural traffic between London and Padua: how the city of Padua figured in debates about the nature of masculinity in early modern London, especially its theatres. Invariably known primarily for its university—noted by Coryat and Moryson, a tourist attraction for Chaucer, Sidney, and Milton—the name “Padua” became synonymous with “erudition.” While learnedness was in theory a positive quality, the place of learnedness in a declining honor culture and its complex role in constituting masculinity remained a contentious subject. English writers by turns envied or scorned the learning acquired in Italy, and invocations of Padua and its link to rapier fencing resulted in a series of contradictory figures in the drama of Shakespeare and Webster: doctors, pedants, enlightened philosophers, lovers, murderers for hire.

Duels in the European Novel: Honor, Reputation, and the Limits of a Bourgeois Form

The emergence of market society in Europe prompted a major change in the social measurement of individual worth. The formal system of aristocratic honor culture was gradually supplanted by a bourgeois concept of reputation rooted in the public perception of individual merits. During this period, dueling was a practice of dispute resolution commonly used in honor groups, and also diffused to bourgeois groups in domains such as politics and journalism. This article explores this cultural transformation by examining duels in 20 European novels and comparing these duels with theoretical and historical work on duels as a social practice. The novels present a significantly distorted representation of dueling. This distortion demonstrates the limited ability of the novel, a bourgeois form, to describe group-oriented values such as honor. This is, in turn, sociologically significant: the novels point to major differences in the social psychologies underpinning honor and reputation, and also anticipate the obsolescence of honor culture well before this occurred historically.Citation: Merriman, Ben. 2015. “Duels in the European Novel: Honor, Reputation, and the Limits of a Bourgeois Form.” Cultural Sociology 9(2): 203-219.

Punches or punchlines? Honor, face, and dignity cultures encourage different reactions to provocation

Research on culture-related violence has typically focused on honor cultures and their justification of certain forms of aggression as reactions to provocation. In contrast, amusement and humor as the preferred reactions to provocation remain understudied phenomena, especially in a cross-cultural context. In an attempt to remedy this, participants from an honor culture (Poland), dignity culture (Canada), and face culture (China) were asked how they would react and how they would like to react to a series of provocative scenarios. Results confirmed that aggression may be the preferred reaction to provocation in honor cultures, while the preferred reaction to provocation in dignity cultures may be based on humor and amusement. The third kind of provocation reaction, withdrawal, turned out to be more complex but was most popular in dignity and face cultures. Furthermore, results confirmed that the way individuals think they would behave is more culturally diversified than the way individuals would like to behave.