Do We Understand Honor Cultures When We Measure Them

While existing approaches to measuring honor in the southern U.S. may serve a purpose in facilitating communication between social psychologists in terms of operational definitions, might they (and the statistical analyses that treat them) fall dramatically short of promoting understanding of the culture as it is experienced by participating members from within? The potential divide between external measurement and internal understanding of southern honor grows when it is appreciated that social psychological questions concerning this cultural dynamic are not strictly shared by those born, reared, and who remain for life within its purview, and when it is further acknowledged that this is unlikely a sign of elected ignorance among those who embody honor values, but simply the given of their existence in contrast to which other forms of life appear strange and in need of elucidation (Malcolm, 2000; Winch, 1955). There is reason to think that approaching southern honor with the aim of understanding it from within—such that its givens become increasingly real to investigators, enabling them to independently summon varied patterns of expression that honor communities would ratify as consonant with their own—should be of primary concern to social psychologists (Lewin, 1938), but a mode of inquiry suitable to the task and a conception of knowledge that would not misconstrue the findings of such investigations as “merely interpretive” seems needed first. No candidates for resolution appear immediately available in social psychology, but they are not lacking to those willing to look beyond the field’s borders (Rogers, 1947; Polanyi, 1952).