Would you post that picture and let your dad see it? Culture, honor, and Facebook

Abstract

Honor means "high respect; esteem," but it has different associations for different cultures. In honor cultures (Turkey), esteem depends on one's own perception of self-worth and on other people's opinions. In those cultures, honor is easily lost and difficult to regain. In dignity cultures (northern America), esteem mainly depends on the individual and cannot be taken away by others. One way to lose honor in Turkey is through behaviors that may be seen as "potentially improper." Thus, we expected that posting pictures of such behaviors on Facebook (e.g., at a party; with one's boyfriend/girlfriend) and letting others see them would be less likely in Turkey than in the northern United States. Moreover, we investigated whether honor endorsement was the reason for this difference. We examined participants' posting intentions and actual Facebook behaviors. As expected, Turkish participants were less willing to post and let others (especially their relatives) see their potentially improper pictures compared with northern Americans. Moreover, honor endorsement negatively predicted the willingness to post such pictures only in Turkey, especially for women. This suggests that in honor cultures, the concern for losing honor could be the underlying reason for avoiding social media postings that could be potentially perceived as improper. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.In 2009, a 20-year old woman, Noor Almaleki, was killed by her father, in Arizona, United States. The Iraqi father wanted Noor to act according to their traditions, but she chose to act like a "Westerner." She refused an arranged marriage and moved into her own apartment, which brought constant disapproval and harassment by her father (Lee Myers, 2011). Another reason for her father's reaction was Noor's photo on the Internet with her male friends. The photo incident was described by one of Noor's friends as "Nothing salacious. Nothing risqué. Nothing out of the ordinary. Young people posing for a photograph" (Freed & Leach, 2012, para. 31). Yet it was unacceptable to her father. Likewise, an Internet photo recently caused outrage in Morocco. A teenage couple was arrested because their Facebook photo showed them kissing ("Morocco Teens Held", 2013). The lawsuit charged the couple with breaching public decency, because the photos "deeply affect[ed] Moroccan education and culture, and upset people's feelings" ("Three Teenagers to Face Trial", 2013).One of the common elements in these incidents was the actors' culture. In both cases, the actors came from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, which hosts honor cultures such as Iraq, Morocco, and Turkey (e.g., Gregg, 2005). The other common element was the trigger, namely a potentially improper picture in social media such as a picture of a woman with her male friends or of a kissing couple. These pictures may not be perceived as improper by members of non-honor cultures, such as northern United States or Western Europe. In traditional honor cultures, however, they may threaten one's so...

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The Impact of Culture and Identity on Emotional Reactions to Insults

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