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Caius -> RE: Honour is dangerous to your health.......who knew.. (8/15/2011 4:44:04 PM)
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Well, let's bear in mind that social psychology is not the most empirical branch of the cognitive sciences, and this theory seems steeped more in conjecture than a hard analytic approach based on clear-cut data. As regards the first source cited, we aren't told what the author of the study used to define which states were "honour" states and which were "non-honour". Given how subjective such terms are, I don't know how you would ever get a consensus view on what distinguishes one region as more honour-based than another. It's entirely possible the criteria used was really nothing more than "these are the states traditionally said to have an honour culture," which is classic selection bias and obviously doesn't cut muster for true empirical work. The second source used self-analysis reports, notoriously useful for determining virtually nothing concerning human nature with any degree of reliability.
And there's a rather obvious factor which skews the report in the use of the word honour itself. As others have noted, what is defined as honour here does not necessarily correlate to what all people who would use the term would define it, including those inclined to view it as an important trait. In particular, there's an emphasis on connecting the word -- and who can say if this is an invention of this broad audience article or was in the original research -- with a mindset where a premium is placed on protecting ones image from perceived slights. But honour is such a broadly used term and this seems like rather a narrow application. A lot of people use honour as a more general term regarding a code of conduct, propriety, and "rightness" with regard to their behaviour, particularly in relation to the social fabric around them. Plenty of people would no doubt consider it a dictate of their idea of honour to allow their public image to be besmirched, if it meant serving a higher moral guideline, such as self-discipline, pacifism, or loyalty. Between the shoddy-looking science (again, at least as it's portrayed in this non-peer-review article) and the obvious semantic issues clouding their interpretation, I'd say it's hard to find anything terribly convincing in the article.
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