Honour across borders: How cultural norms shape prejudice confrontation in migration contexts

How do internalized cultural values shape responses to discrimination among minoritized groups? This research investigates how honour values, originating from socio-ecological contexts marked by insecurity and weak institutional protection, shape prejudice confrontation among individuals from honour-culture backgrounds living in Western European dignity cultures. Across three studies, we examined South and West Asians in the United Kingdom and Turkish post-migrants in Germany. We tested whether endorsement of collective honour and modern proxies of socio-ecological conditions in which honour cultures emerge (e.g., perceived financial threat, low trust in police effectiveness and procedural unfairness) predict intentions to confront discrimination. Studies 1 and 2 showed that the frequency of discrimination experiences and collective honour predicted aggressive confrontation. Studies 2 and 3 showed the dual role of honour norms: endorsement of honour norms related to family reputation predicted only non-aggressive confrontation, whereas endorsement of retaliation norms predicted only aggressive confrontation. Study 3, a pre-registered experiment, found no causal effect of manipulated contemporary manifestations of long-term socio-ecological conditions on honour endorsement or confrontation. Together, findings suggested that lived experiences of discrimination, alongside honour norms, predict confrontation. Moreover, they highlight the importance of distinguishing between dimensions of honour norms when examining culturally grounded responses to intergroup discrimination.