Why Honor Culture? Lessons Learned from an Agent-Based Simulation Model

Abstract

“Honor culture” is a societal norm that persuades people to fight for their honor. Contributing factors to the persistence of honor culture include institutional weakness, and environmental challenges in terms of resources. In this paper, an agent-based model of honor culture is reexamined and extended. The main purpose of the extension is to study the spatial and temporal dynamics of honor culture in a society of different types of agents. The simulation results revealed that the number of agents with honor culture increase substantially with an increase in the institutional effectiveness, and marginally with an increase in environmental toughness. Our model extension revealed that time to reach an equilibrium (no change) of an agent type decreases with an increase in effectiveness and toughness. Finally, both the strength of agents and population segregation increase with the increase in effectiveness and toughness. These results have implications for understanding social norms which are often misinterpreted, particularly in the context of misleading generalization about environmental challenges leading to vulnerability of people.