Perceived reputation moderates the link between honor concerns and depressive symptoms

ABSTRACT

Prior research has shown that U.S. cultures of honor have higher rates of depression and suicide. While links between honor endorsement and suicide have been established in the literature, a direct test of the primary mechanism underlying this association (reputation damage leading to depression) has not yet been tested. The current study sought to address whether shifts in perceived reputation might be associated with higher levels of depression for honor endorsing individuals. An online sample of 305 participants were tracked across two time points, assessing perceived individual reputation and perceived family reputation, as well as depressive symptoms. Analyses revealed that higher levels of honor concern at Time 1 were linked with higher levels of depressive symptoms at Time 2, but only for those with low perceived reputation – these relationships held while controlling for the stability in reputation and depression across time points, as well as controlling for participants’ gender. Findings provide the first empirical evidence that reputation damage may contribute to detriments in mental health in honor endorsers.

KEYWORDS:

• Culture of honor
• depression
• reputation
• suicide

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Compliance with Ethical Standards

The current research was conducted according to APA ethical standards for human subject research, and all participants completed informed consent documents prior to the study.

Data availability statement

Data and materials are available from the first author upon reasonable request or at https://osf.io/v9gf5.

Open scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data and Open Materials through Open Practices Disclosure. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/v9gf5

Notes

1. We would like to note that inclusion/removal of the gender covariate does not alter the findings for the PIR or PFR models, nor does the inclusion of honor state classification (0 = non-honor state, 1 = honor state), participant age, or ethnicity. Furthermore, we did not find evidence for a moderating effect of gender in either of the models, suggesting these effects are relatively similar between men and women.

2. One might consider if honor links to depression simply because reputation does, which would be revealed in a mediation model. Therefore, we conducted a mediation model in MPlus testing for the indirect effect of Time 1 honor on Time 2 depression through Time 1 PIR/PFR. The indirect effect was not statistically significant for either the PIR model (Mediated Effect – ME = −.01, p = .256) or PFR model (ME = −.01, p = .395).

3. Null effects for reputation concern differences between male and female honor endorsers in a separate study are available upon request from the first author.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported that there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Stephen Foster

Dr. Stephen Foster is currently an Assistant Professor of Social Psychology at penn State York. He studies cultures of honor, health outcomes, and stigma.

Jarrod Bock

Dr. Jarrod Bock is currently an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Oklahoma State University. He conducts research on cultures of honor, suicide outcomes, and veteran issues.