Bridging the Cultural Gap: The Importance of Understanding Tight & Loose Cultures

Culture surrounds us from the moment we wake up until we fall asleep at night. Yet, its impact on our daily lives often goes unnoticed. Social norms, in particular, are one of the most crucial aspects of culture that we tend to overlook. We follow norms all the time, and we rarely recognize how much we need them. Social norms are the glue that keeps us together, gives us our identity, and helps us coordinate and cooperate at an incredible level. Moreover, social norms are the key to unlocking societal order and the possibility of constructing a human society. Where we do notice culture is when there is a gap between our own culture and the culture of the people around us. The bigger the gap, the more noticeable it becomes. Today we will share the "tightness - looseness" model created by Michele J. Gelfand and her team and how it can be used when bridging the cultural gap.

What Are Tight Cultures And Loose Cultures

The theory of cultural tightness and looseness explores the strength of social norms and the degree of sanctioning within societies. Developed by Michele Gelfand, a Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland, the theory suggests that social entities can be either "tight" (having many strongly enforced rules and little tolerance for deviance) or "loose" (having few strongly enforced rules and greater tolerance for deviance).

In her study, countries that experienced a lot of ecological and societal threats were tighter. Societies that face a high level of natural disasters, famine, resource scarcity, invasions from neighbors, or high population density on their soil that can create chaos require strict rules to coordinate their behavior and survive.

Loose cultures do have rules but they are a lot less strictly enforced. They are more guidelines than they are rules. In the study, they found that countries that were not exposed to many or frequent ecological or societal threats show a greater tolerance for deviance. They are overall more permissive and loose.

Pros & Cons

Tight cultures are more coordinated, uniform, and have individuals with more self-control, as they need to regulate their behavior a lot to avoid punishment. This can be great in times of crisis such as natural disasters or global pandemics. We clearly saw this working very well in Japan where people followed the rules around mask wearing collectively while mask mandates were a lot less popular in loose cultures.

Loose cultures are comparatively more disorganized and have more problems with self-control since they don't practice it as much. However, loose cultures tend to be more open to new ideas, new people, and change, while tight cultures tend to be less creative, more ethnocentric, and have more cultural "inertia."

Now, neither extreme is very healthy. The "Goldilocks principle of tight-loose" suggests that groups that get too extreme - either too tight or too loose - have problems. Extremely tight groups can be oppressive, while extremely loose groups have little or no way to coordinate human behavior, leading to anomie or a feeling of unpredictability and instability.

Tight Countries & Loose Countries

In their study, Michele Gelfand and her team analyzed data for 33 countries and the results can be found in the graph below.

While there is no clear pattern emerging, the results do show a lot of Asian countries on the right side of the graph indicating a rather tight culture. The only exceptions are Turkey and Norway being a bit more on the tight side as well. What that means in business is that sticking to rules and following proper protocol is a lot more important and expected of members in the society in Japan than it is for example in Europe or the US. This can lead to friction between the local team and global or when expats work locally with the Japanese team.

From the expat's perspective, the local team might appear too rigid and too strict with their rules while from the local team's perspective, the expat might not be giving enough clarity on what is expected or not following rules properly.

What To Do

As so often, there is no right or wrong and it all starts with awareness. Awareness of one's own culture as well as the culture of the people we are dealing with. Understanding cultural differences can help us develop more empathy and less judgmental attitudes toward others. Therefore, cultivating cultural intelligence (CQ) is crucial. It means understanding the rules that guide behavior and how strictly they are enforced to adapt best to the local culture. Here are a few simple steps you can take:

Step 1: Create opportunities for conversations to gain a sincere interest in the culture and social rules of the other person's country (or organization) and to understand the origins and background of the rules. A lot of people might not be aware of the reasons themselves and it is a good opportunity for them to learn about their own culture too. However, it is important to come from a place of curiosity and not doubting or questioning the other culture.

Step 2: Share the "norms" of your country's (or organization's) culture and social rules and norms, and ask several people how they are accepted by others. Would what works in your country, work in the other person's country, too? What are the differences and what do you have in common? Try to find common ground.

Step 3: After identifying similarities and differences in each other's culture and social rules, begin to discuss their impact on important business situations. What are absolute taboos or other behaviors that will definitely not be accepted? What is a gray area?

Taking small steps can be time-consuming and often seems like a wasteful process, but as the Japanese saying goes, "haste makes waste (急がば回れ)," and sometimes it is necessary to go down the right path to get the results you want.

Conclusion

Social norms are a crucial part of culture that gives us our identity and helps us coordinate and cooperate at an incredible level. Different cultures have different strengths of norms, and it's important to understand why. By developing cultural intelligence, we can learn to adapt to local cultures and develop more empathy and less judgmental attitudes towards others.