Praise for Rule Makers, Rule Breakers
“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
“A brilliant and timely book….Michele Gelfand has exposed a universal fault line running beneath nations, states, organizations, and even families. Cultures that face threat and uncertainty seek order and precision. Cultures with firmer footings revel in ambiguity and risk taking. This idea, at once so simple and so powerful, will forever change how you see the world.”
—Daniel H. Pink, bestselling author of When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing and Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
“Endlessly impressive…In figuring out what causes various tribes and factions to clash and sometime come to blows—whether at the U.N. or in a stadium’s upper deck—Gelfand has left no cultural stone unturned. To read this book is to see both yourself and your neighbor for the first time—guided by rules of which you’ve both been unaware.”
—Susan Cain, bestselling author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking
“Completely fascinating….[Gelfand] reveals how political divides, happiness and suicide rates, and the coexistence of crime and creativity can all be traced to a fundamental but neglected dimension of social norms. You’ll never look at a workplace, a country, or a family the same way again.”
—Adam Grant, bestselling author of Originals, Give and Take, and Option B with Sheryl Sandberg
“A delightful, insightful, and fascinating look at the remarkable diversity of human customs— where they come from and how they shape our lives.”
—Daniel Gilbert, bestselling author of Stumbling on Happiness
“Offers a powerful new way of seeing the world. Gelfand's deceptively simple thesis becomes increasingly compelling as her research unfolds across politics, class, and organizational behavior. Best of all, she provides a new toolkit for change."
—Anne Marie Slaughter, President and CEO of New America, former director of Policy Planning for the State Department, and author of Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family
"Remarkable. Not just an enlightening book but a game-changing one. By uncovering the inner workings of tight and loose cultures, Rule Makers, Rule Breakers suddenly makes sense of the puzzling behavior we see all around us—in colleagues, family, and even ourselves."
—Carol Dweck, bestselling author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
“Fascinating and illuminating…Rule Makers, Rule Breakers sheds light on everything from why we embrace new ideas to how culture makes us who we are. We all build order into our days, but as Gelfand shows, some of us like hewing to a line, and others enjoy crossing it.”
—Jonah Berger, bestselling author of Contagious and Invisible Influence
"Brilliant…full of well-documented insights that will change the way you look at yourself and at the world around you.”
—Barry Schwartz, bestselling author of The Paradox of Choice, Practical Wisdom, and Why We Work
“Gelfand has done much to unravel the mysteries of human motivation.”
—Robert Cialdini, bestselling author of Influence and Pre-Suasion
“Visionary and wildly entertaining…Michele Gelfand pulls a very big rabbit out of a very small hat. The distinction between ‘tight’ and ‘loose’ cultures may sound familiar, but this way of carving up the social world is surprising powerful, delivering insights for educators, CEOs, politicians, revolutionaries, scientists, and curious people-watchers. This brilliant book will sharpen your vision and broaden your horizons.”
—Joshua Greene, Director of the Moral Cognition Laboratory at Harvard University and author of Moral Tribes
“Everyone should read this book!...It is rare that one overarching principle can explain so much, but Michele Gelfand nails it with her brilliant analysis of how tightly or loosely people adhere to social norms. In a fascinating narrative full of entertaining examples, she illuminates and explains this distinction, and by so doing increases our understanding of cultural conflict, the partisan divide, organizational success, happiness, creativity, and much more.”
—Timothy D. Wilson, author of Redirect: Changing the Stories We Live By
“Fascinating and profound…It’s quite possibly this year’s best book on culture.”
—Roy F. Baumeister, bestselling co-author of Willpower and author of The Cultural Animal
“Smart, provocative, and very entertaining…Gelfand argues that the tendency to devise and abide by rules, or, alternatively, push behavioral limits is the fundamental distinction between human societies.”
—Paul Bloom, Professor of Psychology, Yale University, author of Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion
“In this tour-de-force, psychologist Michele Gelfand take us on a fascinating cross-cultural adventure. Human norms are as varied as bird plumage in the Galapagos, and Gelfand unveils one of the key phenomena accounting for the diversity. Tightness-looseness explains everything from how you cross the street to how you cross over from the living. Never a dull moment in this enthusiastic journey.”
—Susan T. Fiske, Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs, Princeton University, and co-author of The Human Brand
“Dazzling…When people don’t abide by socially expected rules, families, businesses, and whole societies splinter apart. But is there a downside to following the rules too closely? Read Rule Makers, Rule Breakers to find out.”
—Peter Turchin, author of Ultrasociety: How 10,000 Years of War Made Humans the Greatest Cooperators on Earth
“If you’re going to read one book this year to better understand the world’s problems and what can be done to solve them, Gelfand’s masterpiece should be it.”
—Alon Tal, author of The Land Is Full and founder of the Israeli Union for Environmental Defense
“A thought-provoking look at the contours of modern tribalism—one that uses a deceptively simple dividing line: the split between ‘tight’ and ‘loose’ cultures and personalities.”
—Dante Chinni, co-author of The Patchwork Nation and Director of the American Communities Project at George Washington University
“A particularly timely analysis for our current Age of Anxiety and uncertainty, where people and nations no longer feel confident in what the next generation and near future will bring.”
—Scott Atran, co-founder of the Center for the Resolution of Intractable Conflicts at Oxford University, and Research Director in Anthropology at the French National Center for Scientific Research
"Fantastic…Its beauty derives from the breadth of its insight as Gelfand focuses in to illuminate, in succession, countries, states, corporations, groups and individuals.”
—Michael L. Tushman, co-author of Winning Through Innovation and Lead and Disrupt
“Extremely important…Gelfand has identified and explored a hugely significant aspect of culture that accounts for why and when we fall into step with a group, or alternatively, set off on our own path.”
—Richard Nisbett, author of The Geography of Thought: How Westerners and Asians Think Differently…and Why
“Brilliant…Gelfand’s findings, which are backed by massive empirical evidence, go far to explain why the people of different countries have different worldviews.”
—Ronald F. Inglehart, Director of the World Values Survey and author of Cultural Evolution
“A valuable lens for decoding the nature of our cultural conflicts and an intriguing new tool for solving them.”
—Colin Woodard, winner of the George Polk Award, Pulitzer finalist, and author of American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America
“A must-read book that will fundamentally change the way you look at the world, particularly at our bewildering cultural moment…You will emerge a smarter, broader person, with a deeper, more informed perspective for thinking and talking about the issues that consume us all.”
—Todd Kliman, winner of the MFK Fisher Distinguished Writing Award and author of The Wild Vine