A study of female college students from the U.S. Southwest revealed that women who more strongly endorse masculine honor norms tend to be less sensitive to aggressive behavior reported by a man who is their potential romantic partner. Women who do not endorse masculine honor norms as strongly reported significantly less interest in an aggressive male compared to an equivalent non-aggressive male. The study was published in Sexuality & Culture.
Honor culture is a characteristic of societies that place very high value on the maintenance and defense of reputation. In such cultures, defense of one’s reputation becomes the central organizing theme of social life. These cultures typically prize reputations for strength, toughness, and intolerance of disrespect in men, but loyalty to the family and chastity in women.
The worth of a person in a society based on honor culture is determined by the extent to which he/she lives up to these standards of honor. If a person’s fails in this and his/her reputation becomes sufficiently tarnished, honor might become impossible to regain.
This is why people in honor cultures tend to be very vigilant to honor threats and willing to go to extreme lengths to defend their honor. Present-day honor cultures include cultures of the U.S. South and West, Central and South America, countries of the Middle East, and those surrounding the Mediterranean.
Honor culture can also facilitate aggressive behavior in romantic relationships. For example, a study showed that participants from Brazil, which has an honor culture, were much more likely to condone violence in response to an unfaithful woman in a hypothetical scenario compared to participants from North America.
Researchers believe that honor cultures promote various scripts for how romantic interactions should unfold that can lead to cultural acceptance of violence in romantic relationships. Aggression for its own sake is typically not condoned by honor cultures, but it is often seen as the most appropriate answer to actual or perceived threats to honor.
Study authors Kiersten R. Baughman and Ryan P. Brown wanted to study how the endorsement of masculine honor values affects romantic relationships in their earliest phase – in the phase of attraction and initiation, when individuals are still only considering potential partners. Masculine honor norms are beliefs that a man’s honor is displayed through acts of courage, bravery, or retaliatory aggression. On the other hand, a woman’s place, according to these views, is to serve her family. After marriage, a woman should obey and honor her husband as her reputation is closely tied to that of her husband and her family.
These researchers conducted an experiment. Participants were 95 female college students from a large institution in the U.S. Southwest. 78% of participants were White and their ages ranged from 18 to 27. The average age was 19 years.
Participants completed an assessment of masculine honor endorsement (the Honor Ideology for Manhood Scale, e.g., “A real man doesn’t let other people push him around” or “A real man never backs down from a fight”). After that, researchers invited them to their lab. In the lab, researchers told them that they should participate in an early-stage assessment of a new online dating platform. They then showed each participant one of the two male dating profiles.
Both profiles contained the picture of the same men and a set of non-aggressive cues that theoretically align with culture of honor norms such as dominance and risk-taking. These elements could also be interpreted in a neutral, non-aggressive way. In both profiles, the male allegedly admitted to underage drinking, described himself as adventurous, assertive, strong-willed, and having a passion for hunting and rock climbing.
However, the profiles differed in the answer these individuals allegedly gave to a prompt about a recent annoyance. The non-aggressive male described how he stood in a long line to pay his tuition bill, only to find that he needed to visit another department first. In the aggressive profile, the man recounted a situation in which he was insulted by his boss in front of several customers. In response, the man reacted aggressively, throwing down his apron and walking out of the job. He keyed his boss’s car as he left and sped out of the parking lot.
After reading the profile assigned to them, participants indicated their romantic interest for the person whose profile they read. They indicated their overall attraction towards that person, how likely they would be to ask him out on a date, how likely they would be to go if he asked them out, to message him on the dating website, email him, and how likely they would be to start a short-term relationship with him.
From all these answers, the researchers derived a measure of a participant’s romantic interest in the dating target (the man in the profile). Participants also rated how similar they think they are to the man whose profile they viewed.
Results showed that women who viewed the non-aggressive man’s profile showed higher romantic interest in him than women who viewed the profile of the aggressive man. The level of endorsement of masculine honor norms was not associated with the overall level of romantic interest participants expressed.
However, differences appeared when researchers considered responses to the aggressive and non-aggressive man separately. While both women who strongly endorsed masculine honor norms and those who did not endorse them much preferred the non-aggressive man, the difference in romantic interest in the aggressive man was much higher in women who strongly endorsed masculine honor norms. In other words, women who were low in honor endorsement viewed the aggressive man as significantly less desirable than did women high in honor endorsement.
“We showed that women respond differently to a target in a dating profile who reveals aggressive responses to honor threats, depending on women’s level of endorsement of masculine honor. In particular, women who strongly endorse masculine honor seem at risk for pursuing potentially aggressive romantic partners. These results shed light on the fact that socialization processes can influence not only how established relationships transpire, but also whom people find desirable as potential mates,” the study authors concluded.
The study sheds light on the links between personal values and romantic choice. However, it should also be noted that the study sample was quite small and consisted only of college students. Results on other age groups and other social categories might not yield equal results. Additionally, each participant viewed only a single fictional profile with very limited data. Studies using multiple profiles with more data might yield more nuanced or different results.
The study, “Romantic Attraction and Insensitivity to Aggressive Cues Among Honor‑Oriented Women”, was authored by Kiersten R. Baughman and Ryan P. Brown.
