(Repeat) The power of social norms—rules to make or break(Repeat) The power of social norms—rules to make or break
All In The Mind
What ultimately drives human behaviour? A leading professor of psychology, Michele Gelfand, suggests that culture is one of the last uncharted frontiers. From her pioneering research into cultural and social norms she’s found an important distinction between tight and loose cultures, and their tendency to make or break rules. These social norms or informal rules of conduct determine whether we co-operate or come into conflict, at both the collective and individual levels. This program was first broadcast in June 2019
29:06•10 May 2020
Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Social Norms Shape Habits, Alcohol Use and Everyday Life
Episode Overview
- Social norms are universal, but cultures differ in how strictly rules are enforced, creating a tight–loose spectrum that shapes everyday behaviour.
- Greater threat and instability push societies, organisations and social classes towards tighter rules, strong leaders and more conformity.
- Tight cultures tend to have more order and self-control, with lower levels of debt, obesity and alcoholism, while loose cultures show greater openness and tolerance.
- Extreme tightness or looseness often leads to instability, political swings and even radicalisation, as people shift between chaos and strict order.
- Communities and leaders can consciously adjust norms – tightening where behaviour is too lax (such as alcohol use) or loosening where rules have become excessive.
“Norms are the ties that bind us together… we really couldn’t operate as a species without them.”
What drives someone to seek a life without alcohol? This replay from *All In The Mind* looks at something many people never think about: the invisible rules shaping our choices, cravings and even our sense of safety. Host Lynne Malcolm speaks with cultural psychologist Michelle Gelfand, whose research across more than 50 countries suggests that social norms – those unwritten “do’s and don’ts” – act like glue for societies.
She explains how some cultures are “tight”, with strong rules and low tolerance for deviance, while others are “loose”, with more freedom and flexibility. As she puts it, “Norms are the ties that bind us together… we really couldn’t operate as a species without them.” You’ll hear how threat – from natural disasters, conflict or instability – pushes cultures, communities and even families to tighten up and lean on strict rules.
That same logic can show up in politics, radicalisation and social unrest, but also in everyday life: from the way people drive, to class differences in attitudes to rules, to whether a partner is a ‘Bert’ or a ‘Cookie Monster’ at home. For anyone interested in behaviour change, there’s a striking example from Iceland, where communities recognised they were “too loose” around youth drinking and pulled together stronger norms, monitoring and parent involvement to tackle alcoholism.
Tight cultures, Gelfand notes, tend to show “less debt, less obesity, less alcoholism” – but they can struggle with openness and tolerance, while loose cultures have the opposite challenge. The episode also touches on online life and mental health, suggesting that what hurts people most on the internet isn’t time spent there, but how normless and chaotic it feels.
If you’re rethinking your own habits or trying to understand why some environments support sobriety better than others, this conversation offers a handy lens: are you living in a setting that’s too tight, too loose, or somewhere in that ‘Goldilocks’ middle – and what might you want to shift?
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