Tag: diversity

Culture Wars: How Tightness & Looseness Create Different Cultural Dynamics Across the 50 States

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If you’re from the U.S., what do most people identify with your state?

Are its citizens stereotypical “celebrity-worshipping leftists”?

Are they “elitist yuppies”?

Are they “country bumpkins” of middle America?

Stereotypes abound, and these stereotypes are often based on the culture that exists at the state level.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve looked at tightness and looseness of national cultures.

But every nation has subcultures and regional cultures.

This study delves into the tightness-looseness of the 50 United States.

And what researchers find is a spectrum – some states lean towards tightness, marked by strictly enforced rules and minimal tolerance for deviation, versus those who embrace looseness, with fewer rules and a more accommodating stance towards deviation. 

This study delves deep into the roots of theory, reinforcing the idea that tightness–looseness is not just happenstance. 

Instead, it’s a thoughtful adaptation to the nuances of local environments. 

The Study

In their examination of tightness–looseness – i.e., the intensity of punishment and permissiveness within a social system – researchers created a comprehensive set of potential indicators and refined them to form a composite index comprising nine key items.

This index encapsulates four facets of punishment strength, incorporating factors such as the legality of corporal punishment in schools, historical execution rates, the prevalence of student punishment, and the severity of penalties for marijuana-related offenses. 

Two additional dimensions delve into permissiveness, encompassing the accessibility of alcohol and the legality of same-sex civil unions. 

Institutions reinforcing moral order and constraining behavior are assessed through state-level measures of religiosity and the percentage of individuals with no religious affiliation. 

The final indicator, reflecting looseness, gauges the percentage of the total population that is foreign, offering insights into the degree of international diversity and cultural amalgamation within a state. 

The study then ranked the states from tight to loose based on these indicators.

The Results Are In…

The top 10 tightest states (from highest to lowest): 

  • Mississippi
  • Alabama
  • Arkansas
  • Oklahoma
  • Tennessee
  • Texas
  • Louisiana
  • Kentucky
  • South Carolina
  • North Carolina

And the top 10 loosest states (from highest to lowest):

  • California
  • Oregon
  • Washington
  • Nevada
  • Maine
  • Massachusetts
  • Connecticut
  • Hawaii
  • New Hampshire
  • Vermont

According to the study,

“tightness–looseness can account for the divergence of substance abuse and discrimination rates between states such as Hawaii and Ohio, reliably predicts the psychological differences in conscientiousness and openness between Colorado and Alabama, helps to explain the contrasts in creativity and social organization between Vermont and North Dakota, and provides some understanding concerning the dissimilarity in insularity and resistance toward immigration between Arizona and New York.”

Culture Wars

In essence, this research draws up the fascinating landscape of cultural dynamics across the 50 states of the United States using the tightness-looseness dichotomy.

The study sheds light on the divergence in substance abuse and discrimination rates, the psychological disparities in conscientiousness and openness, and the contrasts in creativity and social organization among states.

Breaking new ground, this challenges the conventional focus on tightness-looseness only at the national level. 

The findings underscore the predictive and explanatory power of tightness-looseness across diverse levels of analysis, paving the way for future research to extend this exploration into organizational and community realms.

While the correlational nature of the research precludes definitive causal inferences, the results align with tightness-looseness theory and broader eco-cultural approaches to understanding cultural differences. 

The study proposes that local environments, shaped by natural disasters, resource scarcity, and other threats, drive the adaptation of cultural norms, behavioral patterns, and psychological traits. 

Tightness emerges as an adaptive response in high-threat environments, fostering norms, impulse control, and orderliness. 

Conversely, low-threat environments cultivate looseness, promoting openness and flexibility.

Unveiling significant policy implications, the research illuminates the contrasting outcomes associated with tight and loose states. 

Tight states boast greater social stability and self-control but also exhibit lower sex equality, increased discrimination, and decreased innovation. 

In contrast, loose states exhibit higher social disorganization and drug use but also embrace creativity, cultural openness, and greater happiness. 

This nuanced perspective offers insights into what has been coined as “culture wars” between states, not just explaining their existence but also delving into their maintenance and psychological roots.

Diversity is an Asset: How Tightness/Looseness of Culture Impacts Innovation

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Do you feel more creative when you are given rules to follow or no rules at all?

Does freedom inspire or limit you?

Today, we’ll delve into a study regarding the degree of tightness and looseness in cultures and how that impacts innovation.

But first, let’s identify what tightness/looseness in culture means.

Defining Tightness/Looseness

As you may have guessed, the “tightness” or “looseness” of a culture is related to its hierarchical structures and social norms.

Witkin and Berry define it as the

“degree of hierarchical structure among sociocultural elements in a society”

While Gelfand, Nishii, & Raver define it as

“the strength of social norms and degree of sanctioning within societies.”

In other words, loose cultures allow flexible and informal social norms, while tight cultures maintain order, coordination, and control. 

Why is Impact Innovation?

For decades, scholars in management and economics have examined the connections between innovativeness and economic performance, often concentrating on conventional “hard factors” such as research and development investments or educational initiatives. 

However, in an era of globalization where cultural dynamics play an increasingly crucial role, the impact of cultural characteristics on innovativeness has been relatively overlooked. 

In this study, researchers employ various econometric models to examine the associations between cultural tightness and looseness and national innovativeness.

The Study

In line with the theoretical framework, researchers used the Global Innovation Index and the rank cultural tightness–looseness combination index.

They identified a significant positive association between cultural looseness, as measured by the Global Innovation Index (Uz (2015a)), and national innovativeness. 

However, this correlation did not hold when using data provided by Gelfand et al. (2011a). 

Researchers concluded that the higher number of surveyed countries, larger sample sizes, and a focus on specific tolerance in Uz’s (2015a) study provide a more comprehensive and accurate representation of cultural tightness-looseness, enhancing the reliability of estimation models.

Diversity is an Asset

The study’s interpretation of the results reveals a significant positive connection between innovativeness and cultural looseness when tightness-looseness is measured as a spread of norms. 

This suggests that societal pluralism and diversity of opinions contribute to innovativeness. 

However, cultural looseness does not equate to high individual tolerance in general; rather, it signifies the endurance of varying degrees of specific tolerance of controversial issues within an open society.

These findings align with studies at different levels, indicating that diversity, when managed constructively, serves as an asset for innovativeness rather than an obstacle. 

This study emphasizes the importance of balancing diversity with participatory safety to enhance team identity and foster creativity. 

The cultural values of a society, as reflected in its approach to innovation, play a crucial role in shaping its economic and creative landscape. 

Recognizing the paradoxical nature of cultural looseness—simultaneously allowing individual freedom and embracing culture-specific norms—can provide valuable insights into fostering societal innovativeness.

How to Cope in Uncertain Times: A Call for Ambiguity Tolerance

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These are uncertain times.

The current climate has everyone spinning, trying to make sense from the senseless and turn the upside-down rightside-up again.

With so much conflicting information, so many question marks and dashed plans, ambiguity tolerance has never been more important.

Last week, we talked a little about uncertainty avoidance and ambiguity tolerance. In this post, we’ll discuss how to develop the latter.

Low Ambiguity Tolerance = Little Room for Relativism

Parental and cultural ideologies teach us right versus wrong and good versus bad.

Racism, for instance, stems from these very distinctions. The concepts of good and evil are clearly defined in such extreme ideologies, leaving little room for relativism or doubt.

When a system has strong rules and norms, ambiguity tolerance is often lower.

Such norms and classifications also exist in cultures with higher ambiguity tolerance; however, there is greater wiggle-room, and classifications are more flexible.

People, situations, and ideas are still labeled and placed in boxes but said boxes are open and cardboard, allowing easier interchangeability, not hard and inflexible under lock and key.

Oftentimes, the more diverse a place is, the higher the ambiguity tolerance – both because there’s need for it in order to keep relative peace and because there’s exposure to others, hence less uncertainty.

No matter where you come from, you can improve your ambiguity tolerance to better adapt to places and situations that are strange to you.

In other words, you can improve your coping mechanisms instead of simply avoiding uncertainty.

Developing Ambiguity Tolerance

The following are some key ways in which to tolerate ambiguity:

  • Do Suspend Judgment – As we’ve spoken about previously, judgment in uncertain times (like now, during this pandemic) or in uncertain environments (like multicultural ones) does nothing but shut done your tolerance. Remaining neutral in your expression of personal opinions about the norms/behaviors of others and other cultures allows room to breathe and grow. When you leave your mind open, you enable yourself to explore the wider world rather than locking into a narrow mindset.
  • Don’t Assume – We all know what assuming does. Instead of assuming certainty about everything going on around you – assuming you know what and why and how things are happening – learn how to ask questions. Listen instead of speaking. Dig deeper, ask “why,” and encourage others to “tell me more.”
  • Do Consciously Relax – Those raised in rule-based cultures like things to be cut and dry. Those raised in low ambiguity tolerance cultures like one Truth as opposed to many truths. Stretching oneself outside of fixed ideologies causes stress, so learning how to deal with that stress takes conscious effort. Use meditation and deep breathing exercises – or any other personal relaxation methods – to help you de-stress and remain calm when you’re stretched. Making these conscious efforts will help you cope in cross-cultural environments and in uncertain times.
  • Don’t Hurry Yourself – Slow down. Now, is not the time to rush things. While you might be of the mantra that “time is money,” it’s important to slow down when the times or the environment calls for it. Taking time to examine, reflect, and give your full attention and care to cultures, people, and situations of uncertainty will ease the additional stress that a time-sensitive nature causes. Don’t be in a hurry to change yourself or to fully understand; allow yourself the time and care to adapt.