A Novel Framework for the Study of Culturally Evolved Chivalric Disposition in Multiple Social Science Applications

Some scholars have argued that medieval-style chivalry has made a far greater imprint on recent history than is commonly recognised. Themes surrounding chivalry and knights in shining armour meanwhile remain popular and influential in contemporary culture. Yet, current definitions of the phenomenon associate it with a fairly limited range of paternalistic behaviours, like paying bills or opening doors for others. The paper actively challenges this view by arguing that the impact of an extant widespread uptake of chivalrous values has been significantly underestimated in areas of vital interest to social scientists. It furthermore proposes a novel theoretical approach for understanding chivalric disposition as a function of cultural evolutionary processes, with roots extending at least as far back as the classical era. Employing an initial scale-validation strategy, the study began with a pool of 48 items generated deductively from the literature on medieval chivalry reflecting its key prevailing characteristics, and presenting them via online questionnaire to a sample of 242 participants. The resulting data were subjected to exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, internal reliability testing, and in-depth qualitative assessment. In a presentation and discussion of the findings, the paper offers a revised definition of chivalry as an evolving set of cultural variants comprising three mutually constitutive, inextricably linked dimensions, along with a working 21-item chivalric disposition scale. The instrument is proposed for additional validation and refinement, and ultimately, to provide impetus for further interdisciplinary research on the broader effects of chivalric disposition across a wide range of potential social science applications.