Michele J. Gelfand

Culture & Psychology

​

 

I was trained under the guidance of Harry Triandis and am interested in understanding what makes human groups similar and different in order to broaden psychological science, as well as to inform policy. My early work focused on the distinction of vertical and horizontal individualism and collectivism (see the scale here). Our team has recently begun to systematically investigate the strength of norms across cultures, or what is referred to as cultural tightness-looseness (TL). Teaming up with partners around the world and from different disciplines, we are doing research on the ecological and historical factors that promote TL at both the national and state level, the neurobiological and genetic underpinnings of TL, the evolutionary basis of TL, and the implications of TL for organizations, expatriates, and for societal well-being. I also research subjective culture (e.g., honor, wasta, fatalism) in the Middle East. We use laboratory, field, computational, EEG, and fRMI to examine our research questions.

​

I also edit the series Advances in Cultural Psychology which summarizes important research programs in the emerging field of Cultural Psychology.

​

See papers in this area below. 

​