Research Papers
Navigate
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.
Salas, E., Salazar, M., & Gelfand, M. J. (2013). Understanding diversity as culture. In Q. Roberson (Ed.), Diversity in organizations. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gelfand, M. J., & Lun, J. (2013). The culture of the situation: The role of situational strength in cultural systems. The Asian Journal of Social Psychology. 16(1): 34-38.
Gelfand, M. J., & Lun, J. (2013). Ecological priming: Convergent evidence for the link between ecology and psychological processes. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(5), 489-490. -- comment on Climato-economic habitats support patterns of human needs, stresses, and freedoms. Van de Vliert E.
Gelfand, M. J. (2012). The trials and tribulations of cross-cultural research. In F. Leong & A. Ryan (Eds). Conducting Multinational Research Projects in Organizational Psychology: Challenges and Opportunities.
Gelfand, M. J. (2012). Culture’s constraints: International differences in the strength of social norms. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21(6), 420-424.
Kashima, Y., & Gelfand, M.J. (2012). A history of culture in psychology. In A. W. Kruglanski & W. Stroebe (Eds.), Handbook of the History of Social Psychology, 499-520. New York, NY: Psychology Press.
Gelfand, M. J., Lyons, S. L., & Lun, J. (2011). Toward a psychological science of globalization. Journal of Social Issues, 67(4), 841-853.
Gelfand, M. J., Frese, M., & Salmon, E. (2011). Cultural influences on errors: Prevention, detection, and management. In M. Frese & D. Hoffman (Eds.) Errors in Organizations, 273315. London: Psychology Press/Taylor and Francis Group.
Gelfand, M. J., Raver, J. L., Nishii, L., Leslie, L. M., Lun, J., Lim, B. C., ... & Aycan, Z. (2011). Differences between tight and loose cultures: A 33-nation study. Science, 332(6033), 1100-1104.
Gelfand M.J., Diener, E. (2010). Culture and Psychological Science: Introduction to the Special Section. Psychological Science. 5(4) 390. DOI: 10.1177/1745691610374590
Chiu, C. Y., Gelfand, M. J., Yamagishi, T., Shteynberg, G., & Wan, C. (2010). Intersubjective culture: The role of intersubjective perceptions in cross-cultural research. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5(4), 482-493.
Ramesh, A., & Gelfand, M. J. (2010). Will they stay or will they go? The role of job embeddedness in predicting turnover in individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(5), 807.
Fulmer, C. A., Gelfand, M. J., Kruglanski, A. W., Kim-Prieto, C., Diener, E., Pierro, A., & Higgins, E. T. (2010). On “feeling right” in cultural contexts: How person-culture match affects self-esteem and subjective well-being. Psychological Science, 21(11), 1563-1569.
Shteynberg, G., Gelfand, M. J., & Kim, K. (2009). Peering into the “magnum mysterium” of culture: The explanatory power of descriptive norms. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 40(1), 46-69.
Gelfand, M. J., Leslie, L. M., & Fehr, R. (2008). To prosper, organizational psychology should… adopt a global perspective. Journal of Organizational Behavior: The International Journal of Industrial, Occupational and Organizational Psychology and Behavior, 29(4), 493-517.
Gelfand, M. J., Erez, M., & Aycan, Z. (2007). Cross-cultural organizational behavior. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 479-514.
Kashima, Y., Kashima, E. S., Kim, U., & Gelfand, M. (2006). Describing the social world: How is a person, a group, and a relationship described in the East and the West?. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42(3), 388-396.
Gelfand, M. J., Nishii, L. H., & Raver, J. L. (2006). On the nature and importance of cultural tightness-looseness. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(6), 1225.
Yamaguchi, S., Gelfand, M., Ohashi, M. M., & Zemba, Y. (2005). The cultural psychology of control: Illusions of personal versus collective control in the United States and Japan. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 36(6), 750-761.
Kashima, Y., Kashima, E., Chiu, C. Y., Farsides, T., Gelfand, M., Hong, Y. Y., ... & Yzerbyt, V. (2005). Culture, essentialism, and agency: Are individuals universally believed to be more real entities than groups?. European Journal of Social Psychology, 35(2), 147-169.
Gelfand, M. J., Lim, B. C., & Raver, J. L. (2004). Culture and accountability in organizations: Variations in forms of social control across cultures. Human Resource Management Review, 14(1), 135-160.
Gelfand, M. J., Raver, J. L., & Holcombe Ehrhart, K. (2002). Methodological issues in cross-cultural organizational research. In S. G. Rogelberg (Ed.), Handbook of research methods in industrial and organizational psychology, (pp. 216-246). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Triandis, H. C., & Gelfand, M. J. (1998). Converging measurement of horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(1), 118.
Gelfand, M. J., Triandis, H. C., & Chan, D. K. S. (1996). Individualism versus collectivism or versus authoritarianism?. European Journal of Social Psychology, 26(3), 397-410.