HRW Shift is a multi-cultural team hailing from the US, UK, Australia, India, Italy, Israel and China, we often discover unique nuances in the way we all think and behave. Our team’s cultural diversity deepens the way we understand human behaviour, and it often leads us to reflect on how these differences shape our thoughts, behaviours and ways of working, including social norms. For this reason, for the 2025 edition of our annual Shift Summer Book Club, we decided to explore the book ‘Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World’ by Michelle Gelfand. We chose this book because it dives into a question that fascinates us as behavioural scientists (and as humans) – how do cultural forces shape human behaviour? Michele Gelfand explores the hidden rules that govern our lives, with a special focus on how the differences between “tight” cultures (cultures with strict norms and beliefs about right and wrong behaviours) and “loose” cultures (cultures with more lenient rules and less judgement for deviations of norms) influence the way we think, act, and relate to others. Importantly, she also talks about culture in a broad sense, not only by nationality, geography or religion, but also from other perspectives (e.g. business culture, family culture, class culture, individual culture). In this blog we discuss our key takeaways from the book and how we will be taking our learnings into our work in healthcare market research. Social Norms: A Complex Force Social norms are the shared expectations that guide acceptable behaviour in groups, a silly but simple example – on a hot summer’s day, none of us office dwellers would rock up to work in our swimwear. Sure, it would be cooler but we know that it’s not socially acceptable. Has anyone ever explicitly told you not to don your swimming trunks or bikini?… Probably not, there’s generally an inherent, shared understanding that this just isn’t acceptable conduct, it’s a social norm. A major theme in “Rule Makers, Rule Breakers” is that the strength, clarity, and enforcement of these norms vary drastically by culture. In tight cultures, social norms are typically both highly explicit and strongly sanctioned, sometimes by law, but also by social pressure i.e. the disapproval of your peers and community. In loose cultures, norms are fuzzier, with informal enforcement and greater tolerance for deviation. For example, in Singapore, spitting is illegal and heavily policed, but it is also strongly socially enforced because the culture values tight social norms and collective order. However, in the UK, the law on spitting is less strict and inconsistently enforced, so social enforcement becomes more crucial. However, because British culture is also generally looser in terms of social norms, the impact of social enforcement varies, those who care less about social norms also tend to be less likely to obey laws. This means legal penalties may have less deterrent power without strong social norms backing them. As behavioural scientists, we are used to defining social norms as ‘unwritten’ rules that influence us, as opposed to formal written laws. However, one critique we have of the tight-loose construct as Gelfand outlines and positions it in her book, was that it appears to incorporate legally enforced norms into an overarching definition of ‘norms’, with differing enforcement mechanisms: -Socially enforced (i.e. unwritten norms): Deviance results in gossip, ostracism, disapproval, damage to one’s reputation and popularity or subtle exclusion -Legally enforced: Deviance risks formal penalties like fines or arrest, and in some instances, even capital punishment “Tight” cultures are in part “tight” and rule-abiding due to harsh and heavily enforced legal penalties, as well as strong social pressures. This clashed slightly with our existing interpretation of social norms, but we also acknowledged that in real life, it can be difficult to fully separate these two mechanisms. For example, many behaviours, like jaywalking, littering or cycling through a red light , are illegal, but often the main deterrent is social: the fear of being scolded, judged, or shamed by onlookers, not the unlikely threat of legal action. This distinction matters in understanding behaviour. Understanding who enforces a norm (family, peers, state), the extent of enforcement, and tracking when a behaviour shifts from socially enforced to legally enforced (or vice versa) can help us understand what is driving a behaviour. Understanding what drives behaviour shapes what strategies are likely to be most effective at achieving behaviour change, and therefore the interventions we would recommend. Tight and Loose Cultures: Our Perspective Culture is an extremely diverse and complex phenomenon, and distilling it down into a single framework is something of a monumental undertaking. At its heart, Gelfand’s framework suggests that cultures can be understood along a single dimension: -Tight cultures have strong social norms and low tolerance for deviance. -These cultures have greater order and discipline, leading to efficiency and less crime, obesity and debt, but have higher resistance to change, slower innovation and higher stigma against deviation from the norm -Loose cultures have laxer social norms and greater tolerance for individual variation. -These cultures promote innovation and risk-taking with greater openness and tolerance – but have higher disorganisation and unpredictability. We found the concept of “tight-loose” interesting and highly relatable – the clear distinction and memorable examples Gelfand provides help readers easily grasp how social norms shape everyday life. For those of us living in a rather “loose” New York City, we witness fare evasion and littering daily, it can get gritty, but we also get to experience amazing diversity and innovation. This contrasts with our experiences living or travelling in other cultures, where eating on the train or jaywalking gets you evil stares or a hefty fine, often resulting in a pristine city but one which may feel less unique or welcoming. Another notable example comes from our experiences with Covid-19 lockdowns around the world. Those of us in “tighter” cultures recall high social pressure to wear masks or even high police presence enforcing this, as well as rapid and widespread compliance with prevention measures. In “looser” cultures, whether it be a country as a whole, a city or even a friendship group, social pressure was low, people went about their daily lives with limited repercussions and there was often mass, though not uniform resentment and reactance to compliance and control measures. Yet one of the interesting, dare we say, ‘contradictions’ we are inclined to challenge is the idea that individuals, organisations or countries can fit squarely into a “tight” or “loose” bucket. Indeed, Gelfand herself also acknowledges this, and highlights that cultures exist on a spectrum, and within any tight culture, some domains or situations allow more flexibility, for example certain regions of “tight” Japan that have a much more ‘anything goes’ attitude. She also mentions the “Goldilocks principle of tight-loose,” – the idea that cultures, groups, or organizations function best when they find a balanced “just right” level of social norm strength, not too tight and not too loose. Ultimately, while Gelfand’s model offers a valuable starting point for thinking about culture, in isolation, we felt it may miss the deeper nuances and complexities that make culture so diverse, and as a result, rich and intriguing. The Importance of Cultural Frameworks in Behaviour Change Unanimous agreement is a rare thing but, one element on which everyone can agree is that culture is an essential factor to consider when understanding and influencing human behaviour. A core limitation in psychology and behavioural science research, however, is its overreliance on WEIRD (western, educated, individualistic, rich, democratic) samples. As a consequence, much of what we know in behavioural science may be skewed towards how individuals from WEIRD backgrounds behave and may not accurately represent behaviours of those from other backgrounds. Additionally, many behavioural science frameworks do not explicitly include cultural factors in their approach – which can mean important nuance is missed and intervention effectiveness or appropriateness suffers. Gelfand’s tight–loose model tackles these challenges offering a straightforward way to interpret differences in norms across cultures and so promotes the wider adoption of a cultural approach to behaviour change. In doing so her research is building an important evidence base around culture which other practitioners can apply to their own work. Its simplicity makes it accessible, easy to communicate, and practical for assessing how norm strength shapes attitudes and behaviours. The model helps explain why behaviours differ between societies and offers a useful guide for tailoring interventions – for example highlighting that social norm-based strategies may be particularly effective in tight cultures, where adherence to norms is strong. However, simplicity can also be a doubled edged sword. By focusing predominantly on one dimension, tightness versus looseness, this type of model risks overlooking the rich diversity within cultural groups and neglecting other crucial factors that shape behaviour, such as individual motivations, situational dynamics, or intersecting cultural influences. This means that while the model offers a clear starting point, it may have limited explanatory depth and may not always capture the full complexity needed for highly targeted interventions. This said, there is no perfect model for explaining cultural differences, and Gelfand’s lens is a valuable addition to the behavioural science toolkit and one we will be taking forward in our work. One of the greatest arts and nuances of behavioural science is knowing when to reach for each tool i.e., a model or framework, and which model or framework, to most effectively support our work. Key Takeaways from Rule Makers, Rule Breakers for Behavioural Science in Healthcare Market Research Overall, we enjoyed the book and took some important insights away that we can apply to our own work. • Intervention design is not “one-size-fit-all”, cultural context, including “tightness” or “looseness” within a country, organization, or therapy area can influence how individuals think, feel and behave. In healthcare market research we must ensure we are capturing cultural nuances in e.g. stimuli development and data analysis, in order to understand the full scope of influence. • Culture influences the effectiveness of behavioural interventions and likely impacts the types of products or marketing individuals are open to, for example: • Research and interventions involving novel or unconventional ideas may face greater challenges in tight cultures, where norms are more rigid, compared to loose cultures with greater tolerance for deviation. • Norm based interventions are likely to work better in tighter cultures. • Culture is not homogenous – when exploring culture, it is important not to make assumptions and fully explore the nuance within cultures – many distinct cultures can, and do, exist within a larger cultural group. • When talking about norms, a distinction needs to be made between legal and social norms, as both have different effects on people’s behaviour. For instance, something that is illegal but not socially frowned upon due to being in a ‘loose’ culture (e.g. jaywalking) can mean it persists. • While we argue it may not be sufficient to place culture on a one-dimensional ‘loose-tight’ spectrum and leave it at that, this framework undoubtedly gives us an easy-to-understand yet relatively comprehensive starting point to think about cultural differences. Get in touch with us at shift@hrwhealthcare.com to learn more about how we take a cultural approach to behaviour change! Apply Now!