Honour, competition and cooperation across 13 societies
Effectively addressing societal challenges often requires unrelated individuals to reduce conflict and successfully coordinate actions. The cultural logic of 'honour' is frequently studied in relation to conflict, but its role in competition and cooperation remains underexplored. The current study investigates how perceived normative and personally endorsed honour values predict competition and cooperation behaviours. In an online experiment testing preregistered hypotheses, 3,371 participants from 13 societies made incentivized competition decisions in a contest game and cooperation decisions for coordination in a step-level public goods game. Perceived normative honour values were associated with greater competition and greater cooperation at both societal and individual levels. Personally endorsing values tied to defence of family reputation was associated with greater coordinative efforts, whereas endorsing self-promotion and retaliation was associated with weaker engagement in coordination. These findings highlight the role of honour as a cultural logic (in its different forms) in shaping competition and cooperation across societies.
Authors
- Manuel Teresi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1103-7621)
- Alexander Kirchner‐Häusler (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2406-7635)
- Stefano Pagliaro (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0573-0937)
- Meral Gezici Yalçın (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8751-3428)
- Evangelia Kateri (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9366-9648)
- Shuxian Jin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2209-4311)
- Shenel Husnu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5679-5568)
- Susan E. Cross (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9368-4397)
- Yukiko Uchida (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8336-2423)
- Jinkyung Na (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7100-9606)
- Rosa Rodríguez‐Bailón (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3489-0107)
- Vivian L. Vignoles (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7628-6776)
- Keiko Ishii (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0581-8138)
- Charis Psaltis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8724-665X)
- Angelo Romano (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7502-9268)
- Ayşe K. Üskül (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8013-9931)
- Penny Karamaouna (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8803-5413)
- Juan Matamoros‐Lima (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6669-8745)
- Konstantinos Kafetsios (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5933-4409)
- Rania Miniesy (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9176-5989)
- Charles Harb (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3958-0092)
- Dina Rabie (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4401-4028)
Institutions
- Leiden University (NL)
- University of Crete (GR)
- Sogang University (KR)
- British University in Egypt (EG)
- University of Sussex (GB)
- Universidad de Granada (ES)
- Iowa State University (US)
- Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (ES)
- Bielefeld University (DE)
- University of Applied Sciences Leiden (NL)
- Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (GR)
- Kyoto University (JP)
- Doha Institute for Graduate Studies (QA)
- University of Cyprus (CY)
- Eastern Mediterranean University (CY)
- University of Chieti-Pescara (IT)
- Crete University Press (GR)
- University of Macerata (IT)
- Nagoya University (JP)
- Palacký University Olomouc (CZ)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Human Behaviour
- Published
- 2025-09-26
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02308-0
- Primary Topic
- Cultural Differences and Values
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00