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How can psychology transform itself into an inclusive science that engages with the rich cultural diversity of humanity? How can we strive towards a broader and deeper understanding of human behavior that is both generalizable across populations and attentive to its diversity? To address these major questions of our field, relying on scholars from different world regions, we outline first the opportunities associated with conducting psychological research in these and other majority world regions, highlighting international collaborations. Cross-cutting research themes in psychological research in the majority world are presented along with the urgent need to adopt a more critical lens to research and knowledge production within psychology. Indigenization, critical, transformative and liberatory approaches to understanding psychological phenomena framed within the decolonial imperative are presented as future options for a more diverse and equitable psychological science. Next, we address challenges, including limited institutional research infrastructure, limited national investment in research, political and social challenges these regions face, and the impact of imported (rather than locally produced) psychological knowledge. We conclude by offering recommendations to enable psychological science to be more representative of the world’s population. Our aim is to facilitate a broader, better-informed, and more empathic conversation among psychological scientists worldwide about ways to make psychological science more representative, culturally informed and inclusive.

Members of honor cultures value engaging in moral behaviors and managing their social image to maintain their honor. These two goals reflect reputation and integrity concerns, which also have bearing on gender roles. In the current study, we examined a) evaluations of women and men described as diagnosed with COVID-19 and as either hiding or disclosing their diagnosis, b) the moderating role of honor concerns (reputation and integrity) and the gender of the infected person in these evaluations, and c) the relationship between honor concerns and individuals' own disclosure preferences among participants living in Turkiye, a country that exemplifies an honor culture. Findings revealed that participants with stronger reputation concerns evaluated a woman's hiding behavior more favorably than that of a man's. Moreover, higher integrity concerns were associated with lower levels of participants' own preference to hide a diagnosis for both men and women, whereas reputation concerns were positively associated with a preference for hiding a diagnosis among men only. Furthermore, a content analysis of participants' open-ended explanations of their views on women's and men's motivation to hide a diagnosis revealed further evidence for the gendered nature of reputation concerns. Our findings point to the importance of prioritizing integrity concerns (and downplaying reputation concerns) in public health campaigns in honor cultures.

Individual differences research on masculine honor has heavily focused on men's aggressive responses to insults by male strangers, but much less is known whether honor-oriented individuals (men and women) are less forgiving - express more avoidant and vengeful, but less benevolent motivations - towards peers following in-sults, and their underlying concerns in being less forgiving. Using 200 British participants (dignity group) in Study 1, and 146 British (dignity group) and 178 Turkish (honor group) participants in Study 2, we examined whether (1) masculine honor-oriented individuals are less forgiving of peers after insults, and (2) this association is indirectly explained by concern with avoiding loss of social respect or maintaining personal integrity. Results showed that masculine honor-oriented individuals were less forgiving of insulting peers, which was indirectly explained by concern with losing respect, but not keeping personal integrity. We also report that the presence of a third-party audience did not have an effect on the observed pattern of relationships. These findings expand our understanding of why, despite the many benefits of forgiveness, some individuals may be less willing to forgive people who have hurt them.

Social science research has highlighted “honor” as a central value driving social behavior in Mediterranean societies, which requires individuals to develop and protect a sense of their personal self-worth and their social reputation, through assertiveness, competitiveness, and retaliation in the face of threats. We predicted that members of Mediterranean societies may exhibit a distinctive combination of independent and interdependent social orientation, self-construal, and cognitive style, compared to more commonly studied East Asian and Anglo-Western cultural groups. We compared participants from eight Mediterranean societies (Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus [Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities], Lebanon, Egypt) to participants from East Asian (Korea, Japan) and Anglo-Western (the United Kingdom, the United States) societies, using six implicit social orientation indicators, an eight-dimensional self-construal scale, and four cognitive style indicators. Compared with both East Asian and Anglo-Western samples, samples from Mediterranean societies distinctively emphasized several forms of independence (relative intensity of disengaging [vs. engaging] emotions, happiness based on disengaging [vs. engaging] emotions, dispositional [vs. situational] attribution style, self-construal as different from others, self-directed, self-reliant, self-expressive, and consistent) and interdependence (closeness to in-group [vs. out-group] members, self-construal as connected and committed to close others). Our findings extend previous insights into patterns of cultural orientation beyond commonly examined East–West comparisons to an understudied world region.

Members of honor cultures value engaging in moral behaviors and managing their social image to maintain their honor. These two goals reflect reputation and integrity concerns, which also have bearing on gender roles. In the current study, we examined a) evaluations of women and men described as diagnosed with COVID-19 and as either hiding or disclosing their diagnosis, b) the moderating role of honor concerns (reputation and integrity) and the gender of the infected person in these evaluations, and c) the relationship between honor concerns and individuals' own disclosure preferences among participants living in Turkiye, a country that exemplifies an honor culture. Findings revealed that participants with stronger reputation concerns evaluated a woman's hiding behavior more favorably than that of a man's. Moreover, higher integrity concerns were associated with lower levels of participants' own preference to hide a diagnosis for both men and women, whereas reputation concerns were positively associated with a preference for hiding a diagnosis among men only. Furthermore, a content analysis of participants' open-ended explanations of their views on women's and men's motivation to hide a diagnosis revealed further evidence for the gendered nature of reputation concerns. Our findings point to the importance of prioritizing integrity concerns (and downplaying reputation concerns) in public health campaigns in honor cultures.

Individual differences research on masculine honor has heavily focused on men's aggressive responses to insults by male strangers, but much less is known whether honor-oriented individuals (men and women) are less forgiving - express more avoidant and vengeful, but less benevolent motivations - towards peers following in-sults, and their underlying concerns in being less forgiving. Using 200 British participants (dignity group) in Study 1, and 146 British (dignity group) and 178 Turkish (honor group) participants in Study 2, we examined whether (1) masculine honor-oriented individuals are less forgiving of peers after insults, and (2) this association is indirectly explained by concern with avoiding loss of social respect or maintaining personal integrity. Results showed that masculine honor-oriented individuals were less forgiving of insulting peers, which was indirectly explained by concern with losing respect, but not keeping personal integrity. We also report that the presence of a third-party audience did not have an effect on the observed pattern of relationships. These findings expand our understanding of why, despite the many benefits of forgiveness, some individuals may be less willing to forgive people who have hurt them.

Past research has shown that economic inequality shapes individuals’ self-construals. However, it has been unclear which dimensions of self-construal are associated with and affected by economic inequality. A correlational (Study 1: N = 264) and an experimental study (Study 2: N = 532) provided converging evidence linking perceived economic inequality with two forms of independent (vs. interdependent) self-construal: Difference from Others and SelfReliance. In Study 3 (N = 12,634) societal differences in objective economic inequality across 48 nations predicted feelings of Difference from Others, but not Self-Reliance. Importantly, we found no significant associations of economic inequality with the other six dimensions of self-construal. Our findings help extend previous results linking economic inequality to forms of “social distance.”

Why are people around the world willing to sacrifice for honor? This chapter addresses that question with a focus on the little-researched cultural context of Turkey. When compared to Americans from northern states, Turkish people have richer conceptions of the concept of honor, and they perceive that more situations are imbued with honor-related implications. They respond to honor-relevant situations with more intense emotions and are more sensitive to sharing content in social media that could lead to shame or disrepute. This research replicated previous findings of the link between honor and aggression, and it showed that honor threats impair goal pursuit more among Turkish participants. Turkish participants react more strongly to a charge that they behaved dishonestly (i.e., an honor threat) than to a charge that they were incompetent, compared to northern Americans. This research provides an important extension to previous research focused on the southern states in the U.S.