Societies facing a host of dangers are more likely to have strict social norms and be intolerant of people who deviate from them. The more secure a society, the more liberal and tolerant its people.

To find out how strict social norms are in different places, Michele Gelfand of the University of Maryland in College Park, and colleagues, surveyed 6800 people in 33 countries. They used the results to give each country a “tightness” figure, reflecting how many social norms there were and how strictly they were enforced.

“Tight” countries like India and South Korea had more and stricter social norms than “loose” countries like the Netherlands and Estonia. People in tight countries thought only a small range of behaviours was acceptable in everyday situations such as eating in a restaurant.

And they were more likely to condemn prostitution, abortion, divorce, cheating, avoiding a fare on public transport and accepting a bribe. There was less diversity of opinion, religion was more prominent, and their governments were more autocratic.


Healthy response?

Gelfand then pulled together data on the threats each country faced from high population density, shortages of food and clean water, pollution, natural disasters, diseases and hostile neighbours. All of these threats were more prevalent in tight countries.

Becoming socially tight may be a healthy response to threats, Gelfand says. She suggests that an embattled society might have a better chance of surviving if it became tighter.

But that doesn’t necessarily follow, says Randy Thornhill of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. He says it is not obvious that conformity would be a defence against so many different threats.

Thornhill has gathered some evidence that societies with higher rates of infectious disease are less democratic and more conformist, and argues that that is because such strictness reduces the risk of contamination (see “Genes, germs and the origins of politics“).

Points of view

Gelfand’s findings could fit that interpretation, but Thornhill says threats like food shortages or natural disasters would actually be better handled by openness and tolerance, which allow new ideas and technologies to develop. “The advantages of not conforming are tremendous,” he says.

There’s another reason to recognise the difference between tight and loose societies. Gelfand says encounters between people in different societies may lead to misunderstandings and conflicts. “Permissiveness and looseness can be viewed very negatively from the standpoint of tight societies,” Gelfand says. “At the same time, constraint and suppression can be seen as immoral from the standpoint of loose societies.”

Thornhill disagrees, pointing out that on average, loose societies engage in far fewer wars than tight societies. He says liberal countries are “more understanding of differences in other countries”, whereas tight countries are more xenophobic generally.

Journal reference: Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1197754