Michele J. Gelfand

Education and career

Gelfand studied at Colgate University, where she graduated with a B.A. in psychology in 1989. She graduated from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 1996 with a PhD in social psychology and organizational psychology. There, she studied under the mentorship of Harry Triandis, one of the founders of cross-cultural psychology. She was on the faculty of New York University from 1995 to 1996, and she has worked at the University of Maryland, College Park since 1996.

Gelfand is the editor of several academic books and series, including Advances in Culture and Psychology, which she co-founded; Psychology of Conflict and Conflict Management in Organizations; and The Handbook of Negotiation and Culture. She was the president of the International Association for Conflict Management from 2009 to 2010.

Research

Gelfand has conducted research across many cultures, using field, experimental, computational, and neuroscientific methods to understand the evolution of cultural differences and their consequences for individuals, teams, organizations, and nations. Gelfand has also done work on the role of culture in negotiation and conflict and the psychology of revenge and forgiveness.

Cultural tightness-looseness

Gelfand is considered a pioneering researcher on the concept of tightness-looseness. She is credited with defining the tightness-looseness classification system, which assesses how much a culture adheres to social norms and tolerates deviance. Tight cultures are more restrictive, with stricter disciplinary measures for norm violations while loose cultures have weaker social norms and a higher tolerance for deviant behavior. Gelfand found that a history of threats, such as natural disasters, high population density, or vulnerability to infectious diseases, is associated with greater tightness. Her research has shown that tightness allows cultures to coordinate more effectively to survive threats.

Awards and honors

Selected publications