Bound in honor: How honor values and insults affect the experience and management of conflicts

A quasi-experiment tested the effects of honor values and the use of insults by the other party on perceived conflict, negative emotions, and intentions to behave distributively and integratively during a workplace conflict. After honor values were measured, participants read a scenario in which a conflict was described. In the scenarios, we manipulated whether the other party used an insult by describing the other party's statements such that either an insult was uttered or no insult was uttered. Consistent with our hypotheses, results showed that conflicts in which the other party used an insult lead to higher ratings of perceived conflict, more negative emotions, and stronger intentions to engage in distributive behavior than conflicts in which the other party did not use an insult in high-honor-value participants, but not in low-honor-value participants. Mediation analyses showed that the interactive effect of honor values and other party's insults on intentions to behave distributively could be explained by perceived conflict and negative emotions.