The HONORLOGIC project examines the role of honour in social interactional processes and how this differs between cultural groups in countries in the Mediterranean region and beyond.
The question we will answer is as follows:
“How do cultural groups that promote honour as a core cultural value approach co-ordinating with others, reaching compromise, and offering apologies?”
Our aim is to initiate a step-change in our understanding of cultural variation in important interpersonal processes by providing unique, multimethod, comparative and converging evidence from a wide range of cultural groups in multiple countries surrounding the Mediterranean (where honour has been shown to play a defining role in individuals’ social worlds) and beyond.
We will do this by conducting empirical studies using economic games, experiments, and surveys with samples recruited in Cyprus (Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities), Egypt, Greece, Italy, Lebanon, Spain, Tunisia and Turkey. We are also running our studies in the UK, the US, Japan and Korea to provide a broader comparative perspective.
This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 817577) and runs between 2019-2024.
HONORLOGIC would like to thank the following for their support for and assistance with this project: the European Research Council (ERC), the University of Kent, including the School of Psychology, the University of Sussex, all project team members and their affiliated institutions, Gëzim Lezha for logo design and Ink & Water for website design and development.
Research Aims
Research Aim 1
To test the role of honour in individuals’ willingness to co-ordinate to reach efficient outcomes, and in predicting other individuals’ co-ordination behaviours during interactions
Research Aim 2
To examine cultural group differences and similarities in the role that honour plays in reaching a compromise during individual and joint decision-making situations.
Research Aim 3
To study the consequences and underlying psychological processes in offering apologies for interpersonal transgressions as a potentially honour-damaging act.
Research Aim 4
To examine whether members of cultures that promote honour as a cultural value display a more interdependent social orientation and holistic thinking, and to compare members of honour cultures to members of cultural groups that form the majority of the previous evidence base in cultural psychology (i.e. Western and East-Asian cultures).