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Examples

Thinkers ranging from Plato to Montesquieu have remarked upon the mindset needed for a culture of honour.

Historians have examined the culture of honour in the American South. Social scientists have looked at specialised subcultures such as South Asian Muslims in Britain. Others have compared multiple modern nations.

From the viewpoint of anthropologists, cultures of honour typically appear among nomadic peoples and among herdsmen who carry their most valuable property with them and risk having it stolen, without having recourse to law enforcement or to government. Due to the lack of strong institutions, cultivating a reputation for swift and disproportionate revenge increases the safety of one's person and property against aggressive actors.

According to Richard Nisbett, cultures of honour will often arise when three conditions exist:

Historically, cultures of honour exist where the herding of animals dominates an economy. In this situation, the geography is usually extensive, since the soil cannot support intensive sustained farming and thus large populations; the benefit of stealing animals from other herds is high, since animals are the main form of wealth; and there is no central law-enforcement or rule of law. However, cultures of honour can also appear in places like modern inner-city slums. The three conditions exist here as well: lack of resources (poverty); crime and theft have high rewards, compared to the very limited alternatives; and law enforcement is generally lax or corrupt.

Once a culture of honour exists in a society, its members find it difficult to make the transition to a culture of law, which requires that people become willing to back down and refuse to immediately retaliate. From the viewpoint of the culture of honour, the perceived humiliation of such an action makes personal restraint extremely difficult, as it reflects weakness and appeasement.

One paper finds that present-day Canadians born in communities that historically lay outside the reach of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (Mounties) seem to inherit a violent code of honour that drives their behaviour.