Examining honor culture in Turkey: honor, manhood, & man-to-man response to insult

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Tezin Türü: Doktora

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Fen Edebiyat Fakültesi, Psikoloji Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2016

Öğrenci: VEYSEL MEHMET ELGİN

Danışman: NURAY SAKALLI UĞURLU

Özet:

Honor culture studies in psychology suggest that manhood is a dimension of honor. In honor cultures when a man is insulted by another man, his honor and manhood are threatened. In such a situation, the man is generally expected to respond aggressively against the wrongdoer in order to defend his honor and manhood. Overall, honor and manhood are accepted as associated with one another in honor cultures, and the insult is expected to result in the violent response against the wrongdoer. Accordingly, the present dissertation aims to examine the associations among the issues of honor, manhood, 'man-to-man response to insult', and the corresponding gender differences in Turkey within the framework of honor culture. In order to achieve this goal, two quantitative studies were conducted. The first study was conducted in order to adapt the three honor culture scales into Turkish (i.e., for honor, Honour Value Scale (HVS); for manhood, Honor Ideology for Manhood Scale (HIM), and for man-to-man response to insult, Honor Measure (HM)). One hundred sixty five undergraduate students participated in the study. The mean age of the participants was 21.26 (SD = 1.95), and the findings presented that the translated scales are valid and reliable. Then, the second study was conducted with 356 undergraduates (126 males, 230 females). The mean age of the participants was 19.47 (SD = 1.34), and the findings revealed that honor, manhood and 'man-to-man response to insult' are strongly associated with one another. Moreover, it was revealed that manhood mediates the relationship between honor and 'man-to-man response to insult'. In addition, regarding the gender differences, while the endorsement of honor was revealed as higher for women compared to men, the endorsement of both manhood and man-to-man response to insult were revealed as higher for men compared to women. The results and the future directions are discussed on the basis of the literature.