Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World
Recommended by: Bill Roos
Posted in: Social Psychology
Purchase →An insightful and entertaining look into the psychology of why people in different cultures think and act differently. Michele Gelfand describes tight (Japan, India) and loose (Brazil, New Zealand) cultures, that is, tight or loose in how norms are felt and enforced. Tight norms develop in societies facing threats. Diversity (if not extreme), mobility, and an absence of threats can pull a culture toward looseness. Intriguingly, the same tight-loose logic that explains differences across nations also explains differences across states, organizations, social classes, and households.
Here’s a short video in which Gelfand discusses tightness – looseness:
https://www.leadingauthorities.com/speakers/video/michele-gelfand-the-secret-life-of-social-norms
Review: Michele Gelfand, Distinguished University Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland, College Park, argues that culture is at the heart of our divisions. In this very readable book, using examples from around the world and throughout history, Gelfand explains:
“Tight cultures have strong social norms and little tolerance for deviance, while loose cultures have weak social norms and are highly permissive. The former are rule makers; the latter, rule breakers. In the United States, a relatively loose culture, a person can’t get far down their street without witnessing a slew of casual norm violations, from littering to jaywalking to dog waste. By contrast, in Singapore, where norm violations are rare, pavements are pristine, and jaywalkers are nowhere to be found.”
Why do these deep differences exist in the first place? Gelfand’s answer:
“[G]roups that deal with many ecological and historical threats need to do everything they can to create order in the face of chaos.
“Strong norms are needed to cultivate the societal order that is necessary for surviving the most difficult circumstances. In contexts where there are fewer threats and thus less of a need for coordination, strong norms don’t materialize.”
Gelfand describes tight – loose cultural differences at the international level (e.g., German versus Greek views on spending, debt, and financial bookkeeping), within countries (Egypt’s ouster of Mubarak, followed by the chaos of Morsi and then a return to authoritarian order with el-Sisi), within companies (lack of internal controls contributed to the collapse of Enron, but other companies suffer from too many controls that hurt competitiveness), and within families.
The degree of tightness or looseness can vary over time as people perceive the situation becoming more or less threatening. For example, the United States became tighter in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, but then reverted to its usual loose mode as people felt safer.
Another example: In 1991, about half of Russians supported democracy and letting individuals pursue life goals unimpeded by state interference. By 2011, 57 percent of Russians supported a strong ruler and 68 percent were in favor of state interference. Why the difference? Between 1991 and 1998 Russia lost about 30 percent of its GDP, crime and alcoholism were rising fast, and life expectancy of Russian males fell significantly, in large part due to alcoholism, homicide, and suicide. Elites who could take advantage of the changes or were excited to be part of historical events were not as concerned, but the majority of the population were not thinking about freedom as they suffered through inflation, crime, shortages of basic products, and disorder. They intensely wanted order and a sense of collective national identity. Enter Vladimir Putin, who restored order and became extremely popular, even though he ruled with an iron hand. Gelfand points to similar dynamics with Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines.
For Braver Angels, Gelfand’s Chapter 5, “The War Between America’s States,” provides a new way to think about the Red – Blue divide. As she explains, “Trump used the psychology of tightness to pave a path all the way to the White House,” by pointing to threats from Mexicans bringing violence across the border, global trade agreements and immigrants taking jobs away, radicalized Muslims plotting terror on Americans, and China “raping” the country. People who responded to this message, seeing threats, were much more likely to vote for someone who said he would fix these problems: Trump.
In Chapter 6 she writes about the “Working Class vs. Upper Class: The Hidden Cultural Fault Line.” Members of the working class experience much higher levels of threat:
“Losing one’s job and any semblance of security is a constant threat for the working class, who often live paycheck to paycheck. Author Joseph Howell similarly notes that slipping into hard living—a term he uses to describe the dregs of poverty—is a relentless preoccupation among the working class that motivates them to vigilantly guard their precarious status. Whereas upper-class individuals experience the world as safe and welcoming, lower-class individuals tend to view it as fraught with extreme danger. And because money can buy second chances, those who have it have a different attitude toward novelty and risk. Upper-class families know that they have a safety net if they run into problems and so they encourage their children to explore and take chances. Because lower-class families lack a safety net to offset the negative effects of careless mistakes and lapses in judgment, they tend to actively discourage this kind of experimentation.
“For those in the lower class, globalization is a looming threat; for those in the upper class, it’s an opportunity.”
Poorer communities in the United States also face more than double the rate of violent crime relative to higher-income communities. People in poorer communities also experience greater health vulnerabilities and have lower life expectancies.
Given the higher levels of threats they face, members of the working class take a very different view of rules. They see clear rules and punishments as being necessary for a functioning society. In other words, they have a tight culture. Higher-income people, because they do not face the same threats as lower-income people, tend to take a looser, more permissive view of rules and punishment. These differences in outlook explain a good deal about polarization in America, the UK, and other countries.
So which mode is best? Tight cultures tend to be more orderly, cleaner, and polite, with less crime and social disorders. Members of loose cultures tend to engage in more rude behavior, have more debt, have difficulty managing credit, and engage in more drug use and binge drinking. On the other hand, loose cultures also have more creativity, innovation, adaptability, tolerance, and openness. They’re also more fun. Gelfand concludes:
“The data are clear: Both excessive constraint and latitude contribute to poor national outcomes, including lower happiness, greater rates of depression, higher suicide rates, lower life expectancy, greater mortality rates from cardiovascular disease and diabetes, lower GDP per capita, and a higher risk for political instability.”
The answer? What Gelfand calls the Goldilocks Principle, by which we achieve a proper balance between tight and loose. We need both tightness and looseness, complementing each other as appropriate, like yin and yang:
“[O]verly constraining or very tight environments severely limit individual choice and necessitate constant self-monitoring; on the flip side, overly permissive environments can promote normlessness and chaos. Either extreme—tight or loose—we reasoned could be damaging to societal happiness. In this view, it’s the balance of tight and loose—of constraint and freedom—that might be the critical societal ideal.”
In language that should particularly resonate for Braver Angels, Gelfand writes:
“By viewing the culture of each social class through a tight-loose lens, we can develop greater respect for people across class lines and prevent harmful misunderstandings. During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, many members of the working class craved the law and order promised by Donald Trump because they believed it would help them ward off the very real threat of poverty. Some Clinton supporters were economically comfortable enough not to fear this threat, nor the threat of immigrants taking away their jobs. The two worlds of the upper class and the lower class have separate norms and preoccupations that have evolved based on their own ecologies. While we may never agree with others’ voting choices, once we know that they stem from our cultural codes, we can at least begin to understand them.”