Michele Gelfand on Tight and Loose Cultures

This View of Life

Most people think of cultural differences in terms of race, class, nationality, or religion. Michele Gelfand introduces the concept of 'tight" and "loose", which cuts across all of those other categories. Michele is a distinguished professor of psychology at the University of Maryland, College Park and joins David to discuss cultural diversity from an evolutionary perspective and more, including why the working class cares more about following the rules, the fractal nature of social norms, gamma wave synchrony in response to threat, and the strengths and limits of a tight-loose axis approach. Links from the Episode 00:56- Michele's book, Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World 04:00- "On the nature of religious diversity: a cultural ecosystem approach" 22:26- Michele's response to David and Harvey Whitehouse's TVOL article, "Developing the Field Site Concept for the Study of Cultural Evolution" --- Become a member of the TVOL1000 and join the Darwinian revolution Follow This View of Life on Twitter and Facebook Order the This View of Life book