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Facebook behavior can reflect people's cultural norms and motivations. Despite being a global platform, there is limited cross-cultural research on self-expression on Facebook. Compared to collectivistic cultures (e.g., Turkey), people from individualistic cultures (e.g., European-Americans) are more likely to have self-enhancement motivation about their internal attributes (e.g., accomplishments, preferences), to emphasize their uniqueness, and to display positivity bias. In this study, we examined people's actual Facebook status updates and found that European-Americans were more likely than Turkish users to post updates about their personal achievements and positive attitudes. Moreover, Turkish users were more likely to post negative attitudes than positive attitudes. Furthermore, European-Americans' self-enhancement and uniqueness motivation was positively associated with their likelihood of posting achievement updates, whereas Turkish users' self-enhancement motivation was positively associated with their likelihood of posting relationship updates. This research is the first to examine actual Facebook status updates in relation to cultural differences in motivations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In honour cultures, such as Turkey, reputation management is emphasised, whereas in dignity cultures such as northern US, self‐respect and personal achievements are central. Turkey is also a collectivistic culture, where relationship harmony is as important as reputation management. When Turkish people's reputation is threatened, they may experience an internal conflict between these two motives and display helplessness. The purpose of the present study was to examine how people from Turkey (an honour culture; n = 52) and northern US (a dignity culture; n = 48) would perceive and respond to reputation threats as opposed to self‐respect threats. As predicted, Turkish participants anticipated stronger anger, shame, and helplessness in response to reputation threats than self‐respect threats, whereas differences were smaller or non‐existent in northern US. Moreover, shame was a mediator between appraisal and helplessness for reputation threats in Turkey (shame positively predicted helplessness); anger was a mediator between appraisal and helplessness for self‐respect threats in northern US (anger negatively predicted helplessness). These results are novel in their inclusion of helplessness and appraisal theory of emotions when examining responses to threats in honour and dignity cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two studies investigated retaliatory responses to actual honor threats among members of an honor culture (Turkey) and a dignity culture (northern United States). The honor threat in these studies was based on previous research which has shown that honesty is a key element of the conception of honor and that accusations of dishonesty are threatening to one's honor. In both studies, participants wrote an essay describing the role of honesty in their lives and received feedback on their essay accusing them of being dishonest (vs. neutral feedback). Turkish participants retaliated more strongly than did northern U.S. participants against the person who challenged their honesty by assigning him/her to solve more difficult tangrams over easy ones (Study 1) and by choosing sensory tasks of a higher level of intensity to complete (Study 2). Study 2 added a relational honor condition, in which participants wrote about honesty in their parents' lives and examined the role of individual differences in honor values in retaliation. Endorsement of honor values significantly predicted retaliation among Turkish participants in the relational honor attack condition, but not among northern U.S. participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Honor means having a good reputation (e.g., being known as an honest person) and self-respect (e.g., being proud of one's own competence). In honor cultures (e.g., Turkey, Southern U.S.), people are more sensitive to threats to their moral reputation (e.g., being called a liar) than in dignity cultures (e.g., Northern U.S.), and they respond more strongly to these threats to restore their damaged reputation. Taking a goal conflict approach, we propose that among members of honor cultures, restoration of honor in response to a morality threat can become a superordinate goal, and can result in the neglect or derailment of other goals. In two experiments (n = 941), participants from Turkey (a non-Western honor culture), the U.S. South (a Western honor culture), and the U.S. North (a dignity culture) received a morality threat (accusation of dishonesty), a competence threat (accusation of poor writing ability), or neutral feedback. As predicted, participants from honor cultures, but not the dignity culture, were more likely to delay their subsequent goals after receiving a threat to their moral reputation (vs. competence threat or neutral conditions; Study 1). Moreover, Turkish participants were more likely to display goal derailment after receiving a morality threat compared to a competence threat, but there was no difference in responses to the two types of threat among the U.S. Northerners or Southerners (Study 2). This research is the first to examine honor using a goal conflict framework and to conduct laboratory experiments in two honor cultures. • People from honor cultures are sensitive to threats to their moral reputation such as insults. • Protection of honor becomes a superordinate goal in honor cultures after insults. • Members of honor cultures delay and derail from other goals after morality threats. • This effect on goal pursuit is weaker or non-existent in dignity cultures. • Threats less central to honor have weaker effects on goal pursuit in honor cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main goal of the current research is to investigate emotional reactions to situations that implicate honour in Turkish and northern American cultural groups. In Studies 1A and 1B, participants rated the degree to which a variety of events fit their prototypes for honour-related situations. Both Turkish and American participants evaluated situations generated by their co-nationals as most central to their prototypes of honour-related situations. Study 2 examined emotional responses to Turkish or US-generated situations that varied in centrality to the prototype. Highly central situations and Turkish-generated situations elicited stronger emotions than less central situations and US-generated situations. Americans reported higher levels of positive emotions in response to honour-enhancing situations than did Turkish participants. These findings demonstrate that the prototypes of honour relevant situations differ for Turkish and northern American people, and that Turkish honour relevant situations are more emotion-laden than are northern American honour relevant situations.