Cultural Range

The curious phenomenon of how we transmit a way of life through actions and words.

Culture is like water. It’s all around us, yet we hardly ever notice its influence in our lives.

A seagull keeping pace with our boat off the Adriatic coast. [photo mine]

Culture drives everything we believe, say, and do (often not in this order). At the tune of ‘likes’ and ‘hearts’ digital culture accelerated the process of individual and group dislike and fragmentation.

However, our reference points, like the seagull in the image above, remain rooted in physical culture. The gull hopes a passenger will throw a sardine. We have similar behaviors—we stay with what we think might work for us.

Instinct tells the seagull what to do. We rely on other guideposts—information, knowledge, experience of others, institutions, etc. As the narrative is changing rapidly everywhere in the world it’s rewriting culture.

Trying to understand and give it meaning is the only strategy we can use to confront the harsh realities and revolution(s) we face. But to do that, we need the ability to read, interpret, connect, and put into context.

For that we have excellent keys—history, literature, philosophy. In the absence of a robust repertoire in those, the close study and observation of language(s) can still give us clues on how different cultures react and respond to change.

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Some cultures are (up)tight, and some are l o o s e. Fourteen years ago, in a quest to explain human behavior’s variance, psychologist Michele Gelfand studied the ways of 33 countries.

“Tightness-looseness is part of a complex, loosely integrated multilevel system that comprises distal ecological and historical threats (e.g., high population density, resource scarcity, a history of territorial conflict, and disease and environmental threats), broad versus narrow socialization in societal institutions (e.g., autocracy, media regulations), the strength of everyday recurring situations, and micro-level psychological affordances (e.g., prevention self-guides, high regulatory strength, need for structure).”

Gelfand’s definition of ‘tight’ amounts to many strong norms and low tolerance of deviant behavior. Loose culture goes in the opposite direction—weak social norms, and high tolerance of deviant behavior.

The first are reliable, but resist change; the second are less disciplined, but have greater appetite for risk. Anyone who’s tried to merge two groups with such different risk and norm profiles soon realizes the difficulty of the task.

Most of us sit somewhere along the spectrum between tight and loose. We gravitate toward one or the other based on circumstances and our stress levels.

A word on words

Words are not always what they mean. They need context.