67. What Is Normal? How Culture Affects Communication Styles

Why do we drive on only one side of the road? Why don’t we sing in libraries? Why wear a swimsuit?

For Professor Michele Gelfand, it all comes down to culture. As a cross-cultural psychologist, Gelfand is fascinated by social environments and their effects on human behavior, particularly, how strictly people adhere to social norms.

In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Gelfand joins host and lecturer of strategic communications Matt Abrahams to explain why some cultures are “tight” and “have strict social norms,” while others are “loose,” with “more permissibility of behavior.”

SHOW NOTES

Stanford GSB Insights

• Threatening Language Can Be Contagious. This New Tool Tracks Its Spread
• Why the Pandemic Slammed “Loose” Countries Like the U.S.

MicheleGelfand.com

• Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World
• Mindset Quiz: How Tight or Loose Are You?

Other articles: 

• The loosening of American culture over 200 years is associated with a creativity–order trade-off
• The relationship between cultural tightness–looseness and COVID-19 cases and deaths: a global analysis

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