The predictors of understanding of honor and attitudes toward honor related violence: ambivalent sexism and system justification

The aim of this thesis was to investigate the relationship of ambivalent sexism toward women and men and system justification with understanding of honor and attitudes toward violence against women for protecting honor. 351 undergraduate students from METU, Ankara and Gazi University participated in the study (180 females and 166 males). Participants’ ages ranged from 17 to 30 (M=21.56). Data was collected by a questionnaire consisting of Understanding of Honor Scale; Attitudes toward Violence against Women for Protecting Honor Scale; Ambivalent Sexism Inventory which has two subscales of Hostile Sexism (HS) and Benevolent Sexism (BS); and Ambivalence toward Men Inventory which has two subscales of Hostility toward Men and Benevolence toward Men (BM); and Economic System Justification Scale and demographic information. Seperate linear regression analyses for males and females were performed in order to compare their responses. Results showed that among males, higher levels of HS and BM; and lower levels of HM; and among females, higher levels of BM and system justification predicted higher tendency to relate honor with women’s virginity and holding men responsible for protecting it. Regarding attitudes toward violence against women for protecting honor, males’ scores were positively associated with BM, whereas females’ scores were positively associated with BM and ESJ scores. The thesis aims to contribute to the literature by (1) investigating the concept of “honor” which has not been delt with in psychology literature; (2) introducing two newly developed scales: Understanding of Honor Scale and Attitudes toward Violence against Women for Protecting Honor Scale; and (3) making use of ambivalence toward men and women, and system justification theory while investigating the topic.