Study explores how cultural tightness shapes personality and political beliefs

Two studies of cultural tightness found that people from culturally tighter U.S. states were more likely to endorse racial stereotyping and right-wing authoritarianism, and to have a higher need for certainty. The study also reported associations between cultural tightness and the personality traits of openness, extraversion, and conscientiousness, but these relationships depended on the way cultural tightness was assessed. The paper was published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Cultural tightness refers to the degree to which a society has strong social norms and expects people to follow them closely. Tight cultures usually have strict rules about acceptable behavior and show relatively little tolerance for people who deviate from those expectations. Loose cultures, in contrast, have weaker norms and allow a wider range of behaviors, lifestyles, and personal expression.

Cultural tightness can be observed in everyday areas such as dress, manners, punctuality, public conduct, and family roles. It tends to be stronger in societies that have historically faced threats such as war, natural disasters, disease, resource scarcity, or high population density. Under such conditions, strict coordination and conformity may help groups maintain order and respond effectively to danger.

Tight cultures tend to provide greater predictability, discipline, and social cooperation. However, they also tend to restrict individual freedom, creativity, and acceptance of unconventional people or ideas. Loose cultures are more likely to encourage innovation, flexibility, and personal autonomy, but they can also experience greater disorder and weaker coordination.

Researchers Liz Wilson and Jimmy Calanchini explored the associations between cultural tightness and a group of sociopolitical ideologies, beliefs, and personality traits. The scientists conducted two studies. The first study explored the association between cultural tightness and a group of ideological characteristics, beliefs, and personality traits across different U.S. states. The second study examined the associations between cultural tightness and personality traits across 56 nations.

Free daily newsletter

In the first study, the researchers analyzed data from three independent sources. They used an established archival index of cultural tightness for U.S. states, self-report data on sociopolitical beliefs and personality traits from a large online database called Project Implicit, and their own survey estimating self-reported cultural tightness. This survey involved a total of 1,290 participants across 45 U.S. states. The authors aggregated the individual-level responses to create state-level assessments of the psychological traits and self-reported tightness.

The data for the second study came from the International Study of Metanorms, which examined perceptions of norm violations across 57 countries, and the International Situations Project, a multinational study conducted across 56 countries. The first dataset included 22,863 participants, including university students and non-students, while the second dataset included 13,278 undergraduate students. Both of these datasets assessed cultural tightness using the same scale used in the first study, and the second dataset also contained an assessment of the Big Five personality traits.

Results of the first study showed that, across U.S. states, more pronounced cultural tightness was associated with higher social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, belief in a just world, Protestant ethic, and Bayesian racism. The researchers defined Bayesian racism as the belief that it is rational to discriminate against people based on existing racial stereotypes. People from tighter cultures tended to endorse egalitarianism less, but this association was found only with the archival measure of cultural tightness.

People from culturally tighter states also tended to experience a higher personal need for structure, self-monitoring, avoidance of ambiguity, and a need for order and predictability. They tended to report a lower need for cognition, which is the tendency to engage in and enjoy complex thinking. Additionally, cultural tightness assessed using the archival index was associated with lower self-deception, higher impression management, and decisiveness.

People from culturally tighter states tended to be more conscientious and extraverted, but less open to experience. The associations with conscientiousness and extraversion were only present when using the archival index as the estimate of cultural tightness, but absent when tightness was estimated from survey data. The opposite was true for openness to experience. The relationship with openness was present when cultural tightness was estimated from survey data, but absent when the archival index was used.

Similar to the first study, the second study found that people from more culturally tight countries tended to be less open to experience, specifically in the realm of creativity. However, somewhat contrary to the findings of the first study, people from culturally tighter countries tended to be less extraverted. There were no consistent associations between cultural tightness and personality traits of conscientiousness, agreeableness, or negative emotionality on a global scale.

“Taken together, we find that cultural tightness is a parsimonious predictor of regional psychological variation across many constructs within the United States and across nations,” the study authors concluded.

The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the links between cultural properties and psychological characteristics. However, findings about associations with personality traits depended heavily on the way cultural tightness was assessed. This raises questions about the equivalence and validity of different state-level and country-level estimates of cultural tightness and personality used in the study.

The paper “Cultural Tightness Predicts Regional Sociopolitical Ideologies, Beliefs, and Personality Traits” was authored by Liz Wilson and Jimmy Calanchini.