Honor to the core: Measuring implicit honor ideology endorsement

•We examined if honor orientations can be assessed at an implicit level.•Explicit honor endorsers scored higher on the implicit honor ideology measure.•High implicit and explicit honor endorsers had better memory of the honor primes.•The explicit and implicit measures tap into different aspects of the honor construct.

People from honor-oriented societies emphasize the maintenance and defense of reputation. Prior research has used geographical distinctions or self-report scales to identify honor-oriented regions and people. The current study examined if honor orientations can be assessed at an implicit level through the use of the Affect Misattribution Procedure ( Payne, Cheng, Govorun, & Stewart, 2005). People high in explicit honor ideology scored significantly higher on a newly developed implicit honor ideology measure than people low in explicit honor. In addition, people high in implicit honor ideology demonstrated a better memory for honor- and dishonor-related words on a surprise memory test. These results support the possibility that honor ideology can be measured implicitly and open up a new realm for research on honor cultures.