6,078 articles
Herbivore men
Herbivore men (草食系男子, sōshoku-kei danshi), also called sōshoku danshi, are Japanese men uninterested in pursuing romance, sex, and conventional career ambition. Coined by Maki Fukasawa and popularized in 2008–2009, the term contrasts with "carnivore" men and is linked to Japan's declining marriage and birth rates.
Herd mentality
Herd mentality, also called herd behavior or mob mentality, is the tendency to adopt group behaviors and beliefs. Key mechanisms are normative and informational social influence (Deutsch and Gerard 1955), Asch conformity, information cascades, and financial-market herding.
Herero people
The Herero (Ovaherero) are Bantu-speaking pastoralists of Namibia, Botswana, and Angola speaking Otjiherero, divided into Ovaherero, Ovambanderu, and Ovahimba; they suffered the 1904-1908 German genocide and lead ongoing reparations efforts.
Heritage American
Heritage American, also called Heritage America, is right-wing US political slang for a white American with generations of European Christian ancestry; popularized by C. Jay Engel, debated by Vance and Ramaswamy, criticized as exclusionary.
Hermann Gmeiner
Hermann Gmeiner (1919–1986) was an Austrian philanthropist who co-founded SOS Children's Villages in 1949, a federation raising children without parental care in family-style houses rather than large orphanages.
Heteroflexibility
Heteroflexibility (also heteroflexible) is occasional same-sex attraction or behavior in an otherwise heterosexual orientation. Coverage includes the term's origins, the M-SOCS four-class system, prevalence estimates, sex differences, and critiques.
Heteronormativity
Heteronormativity, coined by Michael Warner in 1991, is the assumption that heterosexuality and binary gender are the natural, normative standard. It differs from heterosexism (institutional privileging) and underlies health, education, and legal inequities for LGBTQ+ people.
Heterosexism
Heterosexism: ideological system denying and stigmatizing nonheterosexual behavior, identity, and relationships; analogous to sexism and racism; distinct from individual homophobia; also called institutional antigay prejudice.
Heterosexuality
Heterosexuality, also called being straight, is the sexual orientation of enduring attraction to the other sex or another gender; the most common self-reported orientation, with a history as a concept and links to heterosexism.
HEXACO model of personality structure
HEXACO model of personality structure: six-factor taxonomy (Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, eXtraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness) from lexical studies, measured by Lee and Ashton's HEXACO-PI-R, an alternative to the Big Five.
Hi5
Hi5: social networking site founded 2003 by Ramu Yalamanchi, also known as hi5.com. Third-largest social network by unique visitors in 2008, strong in Latin America, Romania, Turkey; acquired by Tagged 2011, MeetMe 2017.
Hiawatha
Hiawatha (Hayo'wetha, Aionwahta), Haudenosaunee co-founder with the Peacemaker of the Iroquois Confederacy's Great Law of Peace and bringer of wampum; distinct from Longfellow's 1855 poem hero based on the Ojibwe Manabozho.
Hidalgo (nobility)
Hidalgo (hidalguía): the lowest, most numerous hereditary rank of the Castilian nobility, untitled and tax-exempt, from fijo d'algo "son of somebody"; proven through chancery lawsuits and cartas ejecutorias, concentrated in northern Spain.
Hidatsa
The Hidatsa are a Native American people of the Upper Missouri in North Dakota, formed from three groups (Awatixa, Awaxawi, Hidatsa-proper, "People of the Willows") who farmed earthlodge villages at the Knife River, suffered 1837 smallpox, moved to Like-a-Fishhook Village in 1845, and now belong to the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation on the Fort Berthold Reservation.
Hierarchical organization
Hierarchical organization: ranked levels of authority in firms, states, and societies, contrasted with decentralized and network forms; evidence on performance, red tape, and history.
High priest
High priest (Hebrew kohen ha-gadol): chief priest of a temple, especially the Jerusalem Temple. Aaronic-hereditary office; alone entered the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur; gained civil power only with the Hasmoneans.
Hijab in Iran
Compulsory hijab in Iran: mandatory veiling since the 1979 revolution, reversed Reza Shah's 1936 unveiling, enforced by morality police, contested by 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protests after Mahsa Amini's death.
Hijra (South Asia)
Hijra: centuries-old South Asian third-gender community (khwaja sira, kinnar) with guru-chela social structure; legally recognized in Nepal, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, yet facing marked discrimination, ritual and begging livelihoods, and elevated HIV and syphilis burden.
Hikikomori (ひきこもり)
Hikikomori (ひきこもり), pathological social withdrawal, is at least six months of home isolation with impairment, coined by Saitō Tamaki in 1998; Japan estimates about 1.15 million affected, and pooled global prevalence is 8.0%.
Hillbilly
Hillbilly: American slang for a poor rural white person of Appalachia or the Ozarks, first defined in print in 1900; also a 1920s-1940s music-industry genre label for what became country music, used as both slur and badge of pride.
Hilton family
The Hilton family: American dynasty of hotelier Conrad N. Hilton (1887–1979), founder of Hilton Hotels and the Hilton Foundation; son Barron sold the hotel business to Blackstone in 2007; Paris Hilton is a great-granddaughter.
Hima people
Hima (Bahima; singular Muhima): cattle-keeping pastoralist class of southwestern Uganda and the Great Lakes, historically dominant over the farming Iru in Ankole, Bunyoro, and Toro; 300,000–400,000 people; related to the Tutsi.
Himba people
The Himba, or Ovahimba, are a semi-nomadic pastoral people of the Herero family living in northwestern Namibia and southern Angola, known for red ochre and cattle herding.
Himbo
Himbo is slang for an attractive but unintelligent or vacuous man, a blend of "him" and "bimbo" first recorded in 1988 and often used affectionately.
Hindsight bias
Hindsight bias, the knew-it-all-along effect, is the tendency to see past events as more predictable than they were. Studied since Fischhoff's 1975 experiments; involves memory distortion, inevitability, and foreseeability.
Hindu joint family
Hindu joint family: a patrilineal Hindu household and legal entity holding coparcenary property under Mitakshara and Dayabhaga law, reformed by the Hindu Succession Acts of 1956 and 2005.
Hindu wedding
Hindu wedding (vivaha): Hindu marriage ceremony centered on the sacred fire (Agni) and saptapadi, seven steps with vows from the Gṛhya Sūtras; legally complete at the seventh step under India's Hindu Marriage Act 1955, with wide regional variation.
Hinge (app)
Hinge is a mobile dating app founded in 2012 by Justin McLeod, branded "the dating app designed to be deleted" for relationship-focused dating with prompt-based profiles. Owned by Match Group since 2018; led by CEO Jackie Jantos since December 2025.
Hippie
Hippies were members of a 1960s-1970s countercultural movement rejecting mainstream American mores, centered on San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury, the 1967 Summer of Love, psychedelic music, communes, and opposition to the Vietnam War.
Hipster (contemporary subculture)
Contemporary hipster: pejorative label for young urban middle-class consumers of vintage clothing, indie music, and craft goods; rooted in 1940s jazz culture and Mailer's 1957 'White Negro', revived in 1990s Williamsburg, later tied to gentrification and mainstream commercial co-optation.