In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term crime does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition, though statutory definitions have been provided for certain purposes. The most popular view is that crime is a category created by law; in other words, something is a crime if declared as such by the relevant and applicable law. One proposed definition is that a crime or offence is an act harmful not only to some individual but also to a community, society, or the state. Such acts are forbidden and punishable by law.
Mores are social norms that are widely observed within a particular society or culture. Mores determine what is considered morally acceptable or unacceptable within any given culture. A folkway is what is created through interaction and that process is what organizes interactions through routine, repetition, habit and consistency.
Chivalry, or the chivalric language, is an informal and varying code of conduct developed in Europe between 1170 and 1220. It is associated with the medieval Christian institution of knighthood, with knights being members of various chivalric orders, and with knights' and gentlemen's behaviours which were governed by chivalrous social codes. The ideals of chivalry were popularized in medieval literature, particularly the literary cycles known as the Matter of France, relating to the legendary companions of Charlemagne and his men-at-arms, the paladins, and the Matter of Britain, informed by Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written in the 1130s, which popularized the legend of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table.
Bushidō is a moral code concerning samurai attitudes, behavior and lifestyle, formalized in the Edo period (1603–1868). There are multiple types of bushido which evolved significantly through history. Contemporary forms of bushido are still used in the social and economic organization of Japan. Bushido is also used as an overarching term for all the codes, practices, philosophies and principles of samurai culture. It is loosely analogous to the European concept of chivalry, but there are major differences.
A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two people with matched weapons.
Ethos is a Greek word meaning 'character' that is used to describe the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, nation, or ideology; and the balance between caution and passion. The Greeks also used this word to refer to the power of music to influence emotions, behaviors, and even morals. Early Greek stories of Orpheus exhibit this idea in a compelling way. The word's use in rhetoric is closely based on the Greek terminology used by Aristotle in his concept of the three artistic proofs or modes of persuasion alongside pathos and logos. It gives credit to the speaker, or the speaker is taking credit.
Face is a class of behaviors and customs, associated with the morality, honor, and authority of an individual, and its image in social groups.
Criminalization or criminalisation, in criminology, is "the process by which behaviors and individuals are transformed into crime and criminals". Previously legal acts may be transformed into crimes by legislation or judicial decision. However, there is usually a formal presumption in the rules of statutory interpretation against the retrospective application of laws, and only the use of express words by the legislature may rebut this presumption. The power of judges to make new law and retrospectively criminalise behaviour is also discouraged. In a less overt way, where laws have not been strictly enforced, the acts prohibited by those laws may also undergo de facto criminalization through more effective or committed legal enforcement. The process of criminalization takes place through societal institutions including schools, the family, and the criminal justice system.
Cultural psychology is the study of how cultures reflect and shape their members' psychological processes.
In psychology and sociology, social inertia or cultural inertia is the resistance to change or the permanence of stable relationships possibly outdated in societies or social groups. Social inertia is the opposite of social change.
The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why is a book by social psychologist Richard Nisbett that was published by Free Press in 2003. By analyzing the differences between Asia and the West, it argues that cultural differences affect people's thought processes more significantly than believed.
Sexual ethics is a branch of philosophy that considers the ethics or morality of sexual behavior. Sexual ethics seeks to understand, evaluate and critique interpersonal relationships and sexual activities from social, cultural, and philosophical perspectives. Some people consider aspects of human sexuality, such as gender identification and sexual orientation, as well as consent, sexual relations and procreation, as giving rise to issues of sexual ethics.
Richard Eugene Nisbett is an American social psychologist and writer. He is the Theodore M. Newcomb Distinguished Professor of social psychology and co-director of the Culture and Cognition program at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Nisbett's research interests are in social cognition, culture, social class, and aging. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University, where his advisor was Stanley Schachter, whose other students at that time included Lee Ross and Judith Rodin.
Nāmūs is an Arabic word describing an ethical category in Middle Eastern patriarchal character. Often literally translated as "virtue", it is now more popularly used in a strong gender-specific context of relations within a family described in terms of honor, attention, respect/respectability, and modesty.
In 1942, Robert K. Merton described four aspects of science that later came to be called Mertonian norms: "four sets of institutional imperatives taken to comprise the ethos of modern science... communism, universalism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism". The subsequent portion of his book, The Sociology of Science, elaborated on these principles at "the heart of the Mertonian paradigm—the powerful juxtaposition of the normative structure of science with its institutionally distinctive reward system".
An honor killing, honour killing, or shame killing is a traditional form of murder in which a person is killed by or at the behest of members of their family or their partner, due to culturally sanctioned beliefs that such homicides are necessary as retribution for the perceived dishonoring of the family by the victim. Honor killings are often connected to religion, caste, other forms of hierarchical social stratification, or sexuality. Most often, it involves the murder of a woman or girl by male family members, due to the perpetrators' belief that the victim has lost her innocence by bringing dishonor or shame upon the family name, reputation or prestige. Honor killings are believed to have originated from tribal customs.
Family honor is an abstract concept involving the perceived quality of worthiness and respectability that affects the social standing and the self-evaluation of a group of related people, both corporately and individually. The family is viewed as the main source of honor, and the community highly values the relationship between honor and the family. The conduct of family members reflects upon family honor and the way the family perceives itself and is perceived by others. Family honor can be dependent upon many factors. Areas that are affected by family honor include multiple aspects of lifestyle such as social status, religion, clothing, eating, education, job or career, ownership such as real estate, and marriage.
The traditional culture of the Southern United States has been called a "culture of honor", that is, a culture where people avoid intentionally offending others, and maintain a reputation for not accepting improper conduct by others. A theory as to why the American South had or may have had this culture is an assumed regional belief in retribution to enforce one's rights and deter predation against one's family, home, and possessions.
Honor suicide is a type of suicide whereby a person kills themself to escape the shame of an immoral or dishonorable action, such as having had extra-marital sexual affairs, partaking in a scandal, or suffering defeat in battle. It is distinguished from regular suicide in that the subject is actively deciding to either privately or publicly kill themself for the sake of restoring or protecting honor. Some honor suicides are a matter of personal choice and are devoid of any cultural context. For example, honor suicides have been committed by military figures when faced with defeat, such as Adolf Hitler, Mark Antony, Władysław Raginis, Yoshitsugu Saito, Jozef Gabčík, Hans Langsdorff, and Emperor Theodore of Ethiopia.
In cultural anthropology, the distinction between a guilt society or guilt culture, shame society or shame culture, and a fear society or culture of fear, has been used to categorize different cultures. The differences can apply to how behavior is governed with respect to government laws, business rules, or social etiquette. This classification has been applied especially to what anthropologist Ruth Benedict called "apollonian" societies, sorting them according to the emotions they use to control individuals and maintaining social order, swaying them into norm obedience and conformity.
