Michele Gelfand

University of Maryland, College Park | UMD, UMCP, University of Maryland College Park · Department of Psychology

With climate change intensifying, building resilience against climate-related shocks is now a global imperative. Historically, many societies have faced natural hazards, with some adapting through specific social and cultural practices. Understanding these responses is key to developing modern sustainability strategies. Here, we address this issue...

This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note...

Gossip, the exchange of personal information about absent third parties, is ubiquitous in human societies. However, the evolution of gossip remains a puzzle. The current article proposes an evolutionary cycle of gossip and uses an agent-based evolutionary game-theoretic model to assess it. We argue that the evolution of gossip is the joint conseque...

The emergence of COVID-19 dramatically changed social behavior across societies and contexts. Here we study whether social norms also changed. Specifically, we study this question for cultural tightness (the degree to which societies generally have strong norms), specific social norms (e.g. stealing, hand washing), and norms about enforcement, usin...

Previous research in western countries shows that artists whose work deviates from their own previous style (intrapersonal deviance) and other artists’ styles (interpersonal deviance) gain greater impact than nondeviant artists (Stamkou et al., 2018). However, aesthetic norms are embedded in cultural contexts that shape the meaning of artist devian...

The book begins by overviewing the timeline of the pandemic and how it affected life, followed by a discussion of the ethics and legal aspects of the pandemic. It then discusses behaviors during the pandemic (e.g., social distancing, protesting) before discussing experiences during the pandemic (e.g., prejudice, well-being, stress, joblessness, fam...

Social norms research is booming. In recent years, several experts have recommended using social norms (unwritten rules that prescribe what people ought or ought not to do) to confront the societal, environmental and health challenges our societies face. If we are to do so, a better understanding is required of how social norms themselves emerge, e...

Medical errors are rampant across healthcare settings, imposing a significant burden on patient safety. Here, we examined the ripple effects of diversity splits, or faultlines, within hospital teams on patient safety and care. Hospitals consist of hierarchical, mixed-gender, and multiracial units that are prone to conflict. Within a diverse unit, f...

Social norms are the glue that hold society together, yet our knowledge of them remains heavily intellectually siloed. This article provides an interdisciplinary review of the emerging field of norm dynamics by integrating research across the social sciences through a cultural-evolutionary lens. After reviewing key distinctions in theory and method...

Discourse about people seeking refuge from conflict varies considerably. To understand what components of this discourse reach refugees the most, we examined refugees' perceptions of how their host communities perceive them (i.e., intergroup metaperceptions). We sampled refugees who fled Syria to Jordan, Lebanon, Germany, and the Netherlands. Focus...

This study follows the human side of ISIS’s amazing rise and fall in Iraq. It does not do this as a battle-by-battle history of the group, but rather explores how common Iraqis viewed the group, interacted with the group, joined the group, fought in the group, and ultimately suffered under its brutal rule. Specifically, we seek to answer the follow...

This study follows the human side of ISIS’s amazing rise and fall in Iraq. It does not do this as a battle-by-battle history of the group, but rather explores how common Iraqis viewed the group, interacted with the group, joined the group, fought in the group, and ultimately suffered under its brutal rule. Specifically, we seek to answer the follow...

This study follows the human side of ISIS’s amazing rise and fall in Iraq. It does not do this as a battle-by-battle history of the group, but rather explores how common Iraqis viewed the group, interacted with the group, joined the group, fought in the group, and ultimately suffered under its brutal rule. Specifically, we seek to answer the follow...

This study follows the human side of ISIS’s amazing rise and fall in Iraq. It does not do this as a battle-by-battle history of the group, but rather explores how common Iraqis viewed the group, interacted with the group, joined the group, fought in the group, and ultimately suffered under its brutal rule. Specifically, we seek to answer the follow...

This study follows the human side of ISIS’s amazing rise and fall in Iraq. It does not do this as a battle-by-battle history of the group, but rather explores how common Iraqis viewed the group, interacted with the group, joined the group, fought in the group, and ultimately suffered under its brutal rule. Specifically, we seek to answer the follow...

This study follows the human side of ISIS’s amazing rise and fall in Iraq. It does not do this as a battle-by-battle history of the group, but rather explores how common Iraqis viewed the group, interacted with the group, joined the group, fought in the group, and ultimately suffered under its brutal rule. Specifically, we seek to answer the follow...

This study follows the human side of ISIS’s amazing rise and fall in Iraq. It does not do this as a battle-by-battle history of the group, but rather explores how common Iraqis viewed the group, interacted with the group, joined the group, fought in the group, and ultimately suffered under its brutal rule. Specifically, we seek to answer the follow...

This study follows the human side of ISIS’s amazing rise and fall in Iraq. It does not do this as a battle-by-battle history of the group, but rather explores how common Iraqis viewed the group, interacted with the group, joined the group, fought in the group, and ultimately suffered under its brutal rule. Specifically, we seek to answer the follow...

This study follows the human side of ISIS’s amazing rise and fall in Iraq. It does not do this as a battle-by-battle history of the group, but rather explores how common Iraqis viewed the group, interacted with the group, joined the group, fought in the group, and ultimately suffered under its brutal rule. Specifically, we seek to answer the follow...

This study follows the human side of ISIS’s amazing rise and fall in Iraq. It does not do this as a battle-by-battle history of the group, but rather explores how common Iraqis viewed the group, interacted with the group, joined the group, fought in the group, and ultimately suffered under its brutal rule. Specifically, we seek to answer the follow...

This study follows the human side of ISIS’s amazing rise and fall in Iraq. It does not do this as a battle-by-battle history of the group, but rather explores how common Iraqis viewed the group, interacted with the group, joined the group, fought in the group, and ultimately suffered under its brutal rule. Specifically, we seek to answer the follow...

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all domains of human life, including the economic and social fabric of societies. One of the central strategies for managing public health throughout the pandemic has been through persuasive messaging and collective behaviour change. To help scholars better understand the social and moral psychology behind public...

A new wave of research on psychology and culture uses longitudinal models and time series analyses to test questions about the relationship between culture and human behavior. In 2019, we contributed to this new literature with a paper titled “The loosening of American norms is associated with a creativity-order tradeoff” in which we found that the...

In honor cultures, relatively minor disputes can escalate, making numerous forms of aggression widespread. We find evidence that honor cultures’ focus on virility impedes a key conflict de-escalation strategy—apology—that can be successfully promoted through a shift in mindset. Across five studies using mixed methods (text analysis of congressional...

At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 became a global problem. Despite all the efforts to emphasize the relevance of preventive measures, not everyone adhered to them. Thus, learning more about the characteristics determining attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic is crucial to improving future interventions. In this study, we applied ma...

We are very pleased to introduce Volume 9 of the Handbook of Advances in Culture and Psychology. Over the last 10 years, we have featured programmatic research on culture and psychology to continue to globalize the field. This volume, like its predecessors, showcases contributions from internationally renowned culture scholars who span the discipli...

An astonishing cultural phenomenon is where, far away from or close to a city center, people in different societies localize cemeteries that function as both sites of memory of lost ones and symbols of mortality. Yet a psychological account of such differences in behavioral responses to symbols of mortality is lacking. Across five studies ( N = 1,5...

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all domains of human life, including the economic and social fabric of societies. One of the central strategies for managing public health throughout the pandemic has been through persuasive messaging and collective behavior change. To help scholars better understand the social and moral psychology behind public h...

People vary on their desire for strict norms, and the moral underpinnings of these differences have yet to be explored. The current research examined whether and how moral beliefs held by individuals would affect the extent to which they want their country to be tight (i.e., having strict social norms) or loose (i.e., having more permissive social...

Many people practiced COVID-19-related safety measures in the first year of the pandemic, but Republicans were less likely to engage in behaviors such as wearing masks or face coverings than Democrats, suggesting radical disparities in health practices split along political fault lines. We developed an "intervention tournament" which aimed to ident...

Opportunistic actors-who behave expediently, cheating when they can and offering minimal cooperation only when they have to-play an important role in producing some puzzling phenomena, including the flourishing of strong reciprocity, the peculiar correlation between positive and negative reciprocity within cultures of honor, and low levels of socia...

The present paper examines longitudinally how subjective perceptions about COVID-19, one’s community, and the government predict adherence to public health measures to reduce the spread of the virus. Using an international survey ( N = 3040), we test how infection risk perception, trust in the governmental response and communications about COVID-19...

Since humanity's first steps, individuals have used nonverbal cues to communicate and infer leadership, such as walking ahead of others. Menon et al., (2010) showed that the use of spatial ordering as cue to leadership differs across cultures: Singaporeans were more likely than Americans to represent leaders behind rather than in front of groups. F...

Changing collective behaviour and supporting non-pharmaceutical interventions is an important component in mitigating virus transmission during a pandemic. In a large international collaboration (Study 1, N = 49,968 across 67 countries), we investigated self-reported factors associated with public health behaviours (e.g., spatial distancing and str...

Significance People are constantly exposed to threatening language in mass communication channels, yet we lack tools to identify language about threats and track its impact on human groups. We developed a threat dictionary, a computationally derived linguistic tool that indexes threat levels from texts with high temporal resolution, across media pl...

We propose a new theoretical model depicting the compensatory relations between personal agency and social assistance. It suggests two general hypotheses, namely that (1) the stronger the individuals’ sense of personal agency, the weaker their motivation to utilize social assistance and the greater their consequent tendency to develop anti-social a...

Tightening social norms is thought to be adaptive for dealing with collective threat yet it may have negative consequences for increasing prejudice. The present research investigated the role of desire for cultural tightness, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, in increasing negative attitudes towards immigrants. We used participant-level data from...

Many people practiced COVID-19-related safety measures in the first year of the pandemic, but Republicans were less likely to engage in behaviors such as wearing masks or face coverings than Democrats, suggesting radical disparities in health practices split along political fault lines. We developed an “intervention tournament” which aimed to ident...

When ecological threats are more severe or prevalent, societies are more likely to tighten their social norms and punishments. Moreover, when people follow clear and tight rules, they are more prone to regulate their behavior (i.e., self-control) in order to avoid punishment. Therefore, we examined the mediating role of people’s endorsement of cult...

Humans have believed in gods and spirits since the earliest days of our species, and many people still believe in them today. Although the existence of religious belief has been a human constant, the nature and prevalence of religion has changed dramatically throughout human history. Here we describe the emerging science of religious change. We fir...

Civilian casualties occur during military attacks. Such ‘collateral damage’ is prohibited by international laws but increases with substantial consequences when intergroup conflict escalates. Here, we investigate cognitive and neural bases of decision-making processes resulting in civilian harm, using a task that simulates punishment decision-makin...

In this article, we show that an evolutionary game theoretic (EGT) modeling approach can be fruitfully integrated with research in cross-cultural psychology to provide insight into cultural dynamics. EGT was initially developed to model biological evolution, but has been increasingly used to study the evolution of human behavior. Through "virtual e...

Billions of people from around the world believe in vengeful gods who punish immoral behavior. These punitive religious beliefs may foster prosociality and contribute to large-scale cooperation, but little is known about how these beliefs emerge and why people adopt them in the first place. We present a cultural-psychological model suggesting that...

Volume 8 of the Handbook of Advances in Culture and Psychology showcases contributions from internationally renowned culture scholars who span the discipline of culture and psychology and related disciplines and represent diversity in the theory and study of culture within psychology. The volume includes cutting-edge contributions on culture and me...

Norm enforcement may be important for resolving conflicts and promoting cooperation. However, little is known about how preferred responses to norm violations vary across cultures and across domains. In a preregistered study of 57 countries (using convenience samples of 22,863 students and non-students), we measured perceptions of the appropriatene...

Norm enforcement may be important for resolving conflicts and promoting cooperation. However, little is known about how preferred responses to norm violations vary across cultures and across domains. In a preregistered study of 57 countries (using convenience samples of 22,863 students and non-students), we measured perceptions of the appropriatene...

We propose a new theoretical model depicting the compensatory relations between personal agency and social assistance. It suggests two general hypotheses, namely that (1) the stronger the individuals’ sense of personal agency, the weaker their motivation to utilize social assistance and the greater their consequent tendency to develop anti-social a...

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic is a global health crisis, yet certain countries have had far more success in limiting COVID-19 cases and deaths. We suggest that collective threats require a tremendous amount of coordination, and that strict adherence to social norms is a key mechanism that enables groups to do so. Here we examine how the strengt...

The present research addresses the unique role of locomotion and assessment regulatory-mode orientations on self-forgiveness, by controlling for personality traits and by excluding possible effects of variables linked to strategies that underestimate one’s culpability. In three studies (Total N = 471) we found that assessment obstructs, while locom...

Civilian casualties occur during military attacks. Such collateral damage is prohibited by international laws but increases with substantial consequences when intergroup conflict escalates. We investigate cognitive and neural bases of collateral damage by integrating brain imaging and statistical modeling of punishment decision-making during interg...

In this work, we study how social contacts and feelings of solidarity shape experiences of loneliness during the COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020. We draw on cross-national data, collected across four time points between mid-March until early May 2020. We situate our work within the public debate on these issues and discuss to what extent the public...

Humans and viruses have been coevolving for millennia. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19) has been particularly successful in evading our evolved defenses. The outcome has been tragic—across the globe, millions have been sickened and hundreds of thousands have died. Moreover, the quarantine...

The PsyCorona collaboration is a research project to examine processes involved in the COVID-19 pandemic, such as behavior that curbs virus transmission, which may implicate social norms, cooperation, and self-regulation. The study also examines psychosocial consequences of physical distancing strategies and societal lockdown, such as frustration o...

Prior evidence suggests that external threat motivates people to monitor norm violations. However, the effect of threat may be attenuated for those high in interdependent self-construal (SC) because this SC affords a sense of protection against the threat. Here, we tested this possibility by priming or not priming young American adults with a patho...

The impacts of COVID-19 on workers and workplaces across the globe have been dramatic. This broad review of prior research rooted in work and organizational psychology, and related fields, is intended to make sense of the implications for employees, teams, and work organizations. This review and preview of relevant literatures focuses on (a) emerge...

Objective Ample research documented the effects of guiding principles in people’s lives, as reflected in personal values, on a variety of behaviors. But do these principles universally guide behaviors across all cultural contexts? To address this question, we investigated the effect of cross‐cultural differences in the strength of social norms (i.e...

Mapping the Moods of COVID-19: Global Study Uses Data Visualization to Track Psychological Responses, Identify Targets for Intervention

Billions of people from around the world believe in vengeful gods who punish immoral behavior. These punitive religious beliefs may foster prosociality and contribute to large-scale cooperation, but little is known about how these beliefs emerge and why people adopt them in the first place. We present a cultural-psychological model suggesting that...

Human groups have long faced ecological threats such as resource stress and warfare, and must also overcome strains on coordination and cooperation that are imposed by growing social complexity. Tightness-looseness (TL) theory suggests that societies react to these challenges by becoming culturally tighter, with stronger norms and harsher punishmen...

From Australia to the Arctic, human groups engage in synchronous behaviour during communal rituals. Because ritualistic synchrony is widespread, many argue that it is functional for human groups, encouraging large-scale cooperation and group cohesion. Here, we offer a more nuanced perspective on synchrony's function. We review research on synchrony...

Governments around the world have implemented measures to manage the transmission of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). While the majority of these measures are proving effective, they have a high social and economic cost, and response strategies are being adjusted. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that communities should have a voi...

COVID-19’s impacts on workers and workplaces across the globe have been dramatic. We present a broad review of prior research rooted in work and organizational psychology, and related fields, for making sense of the implications for employees, teams, and work organizations. Our review and preview of relevant literatures focuses on: (i) emerging cha...

Tomasello describes how the sense of moral obligation emerges from a shared perspective with collaborative partners and in-group members. Our commentary expands this framework to accommodate multiple social identities, where the normative standards associated with diverse group memberships can often conflict with one another. Reconciling these conf...

The COVID-19 pandemic represents a massive global health crisis. Because the crisis requires large-scale behaviour change and places significant psychological burdens on individuals, insights from the social and behavioural sciences can be used to help align human behaviour with the recommendations of epidemiologists and public health experts. Here...

Prior evidence suggests that external threat motivates people to monitor norm violations. However, the effect of threat may be attenuated for those high in interdependent self-construal (SC) since this SC affords a sense of protection against the threat. Here, we tested this possibility by priming or not priming young American adults with a pathoge...

The spread of COVID-19 represents a global public health crisis, yet some nations have been more effective at limiting the spread of the virus and the likelihood that people die from infection. Here we show that institutional and cultural factors combine to explain these cross-cultural differences. Nations with efficient governments and tight cultu...

The COVID-19 pandemic represents a massive, global health crisis. Because the crisis requires large-scale behavior change and poses significant psychological burdens on individuals, insights from the social and behavioural sciences are critical for optimizing pandemic response. Here we review relevant research from a diversity of research areas rel...

One fundamental function of social norms is to promote social coordination. Moreover, greater social coordination may be called for when tight norms govern social relations with others. Hence, the sensitivity to social norm violations may be jointly modulated by relational goals and a belief that the social context is tight (vs. loose). We tested t...

Revenge during intergroup conflict is a human universal, but its neurobiological underpinnings remain unclear. We address this by integrating functional MRI and measurements of endogenous oxytocin in participants who view an ingroup and an outgroup member's suffering that is caused mutually (Revenge group) or respectively by a computer (Control gro...

Centuries of Church exposure promote more individualistic and less conforming psychology