Rule Makers,
Rule Breakers
How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World
“Groundbreaking…Anyone interested in our cultural divides will find tremendous insight here.”
Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of Enlightenment Now
ABOUT MICHELE
Professor of Organizational Behavior | Stanford Graduate School of Business
Professor of Psychology by Courtesy | Stanford University
I am a Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Professor of Psychology by Courtesy at Stanford University. Under my direction, the Culture Lab studies the strength of cultural norms, negotiation, conflict, revenge, forgiveness, and diversity. My philosophy is to incorporate as many interdisciplinary perspectives as possible into my research. We work with computer scientists, neuroscientists, political scientists, and--increasingly--biologists to understand all things cultural.
Check out the group here, and find out how to get involved here.
FEATURED WORK
Select Papers
Gelfand, M. J., et al. (2011). Differences between tight and loose cultures: A 33-nation study. Science, 332(6033), 1100-1104. PDF.
Gelfand, M. J., Jackson, J. C., Pan, X., Nau, D., Pieper, D., Denison, E., ... & Wang, M. (2021). The relationship between cultural tightness–looseness and COVID-19 cases and deaths: a global analysis. The Lancet Planetary Health. PDF.
Harrington, J. R., & Gelfand, M. J. (2014). Tightness–looseness across the 50 united states. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201317937. PDF.
Mu, Y., Han, S., & Gelfand, M. J. (2017). The role of gamma interbrain synchrony in social coordination when humans face territorial threats. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 12(10), 1614-1623. PDF.
Gelfand, M. J., Aycan, Z., Erez, M., & Leung, K. (2017). Cross-cultural industrial organizational psychology and organizational behavior: A hundred-year journey. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3), 514. PDF.
Gelfand, et al. (2015). Culture and getting to yes: The linguistic signature of creative agreements in the United States and Egypt. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 36(7), 967-989. PDF.
Gelfand, M. J., & Kashima, Y. (2016). Editorial overview: Culture: Advances in the science of culture and psychology. Current opinion in psychology, 8(1), 1-7. PDF.
Popular Press
August 23, 2021
A Failure of Fear: Why Certain Nations Flunked the COVID-19 Threat Test
Behavioral Scientist
February 1, 2021
Why countries with 'loose', rule-breaking cultures have been hit harder by Covid
The Guardian
RECENT NEWS
New book coming out soon: ISIS in Iraq, The Social and Psychological Foundations of Terror
New handbook on cross-cultural organizational behavior in press. Stay tuned!
Handbook of Advances in Culture and Psychology, volume 9 out now!
Gelfand received the 2022 SIOP Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award
New Threat Dictionary published in PNAS
Gelfand listed as MBA professor to watch.
Gelfand is inducted into the National Academy of Sciences, April 2022
Gelfand is elected Fellow of the International Association for Conflict Management, 2021
CONTACT
Feel free to contact me with the provided form. I will do my best to reply in a timely manner:
Stanford Graduate School of Business
655 Knight Way
Stanford, CA 94305