Abstract
Honor endorsement might predict an intertwining of personal and national identities that facilitates taking country-level threats personally. If true, this could help explain why honor endorsement predicts support for defensive reactions to national provocations. In a sample of US college students (Study 1) and adults (Study 2), a latent honor variable predicted (1) personalizing national threats, and (2) defensive responses to illegal immigration and terrorism. The first of these associations was mediated by respondents' identification with the nation, and the second was mediated sequentially by national identification and the resultant tendency to personalize national threats. Together, these results highlight a mechanism by which the honor-national-defensiveness association emerges and opens the door for further research on honor and group-level processes.