The Good News about Honor Culture: The Preference for Cooperative Conflict Management in the Absence of Insults

Abstract

AbstractPeople from honor cultures are generally seen as prone to react aggressively in conflict situations. The current research challenges this view and shows that people from honor cultures react more constructively to a conflict situation than people from dignity cultures, as long as they are not insulted. In an experiment in which 41 honor and 41 dignity participants reacted to a conflict situation with or without insult, we showed that—as long as they are not insulted—people from honor cultures handled potential conflict situations more constructively than people from dignity cultures. Thus, the good news about people from honor cultures is that they are willing and able to handle conflict situations constructively—even more so than people from dignity cultures—as long as they are not insulted.