Rule Makers, Rule Breakers

Zusatztext 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 Informationen zum Autor Michele Gelfand is a Distinguished University Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her pioneering research into cultural norms has been cited thousands of times in the press, including in The New York Times , The Washington Post, Harvard Business Review, and Science , and on NPR. The recipient of numerous awards, she is a past president of the International Association for Conflict Management. Klappentext "A theory explaining cultural differences between countries and individuals based on the rigidity with which they adhere--or don't--to 'social norms'"--Rule Makers, Rule Breakers 1 A Cure for Chaos Imagine a world where people are always late. Trains, buses, and airplanes don't abide by any fixed schedule. In conversations, people interrupt each other frequently, get handsy with new acquaintances, and never make eye contact. People wake up whenever they want and leave their houses with or without putting on clothes. At restaurantswhich are open wheneverpeople demand food that isn't on the menu, chew with their mouths open, belch frequently, and, without asking, eat off of strangers' plates. Board a crowded elevator, and you'll find people singing, shaking their wet umbrellas on each other, and facing the wrong direction. In schools, students talk on their phones throughout lectures, pull pranks on the teachers, and cheat openly on exams. On city streets, no one pays attention to stoplights, and people drive on both sides of the road. Pedestrians litter heedlessly, steal strangers' bicycles off racks, and curse loudly. Sex isn't reserved for private settings like bedrooms; it happens on public transportation, on park benches, and in movie theaters. This is a world without social normsa world where people don't have any socially agreed-upon standards of behavior. Luckily, humansmuch more than any other specieshave an uncanny ability to develop, maintain, and enforce social norms to avoid the above scenarios. In fact, we're a super-normative species: Without even realizing it, we spend a huge amount of our lives following social rules and conventionseven if the rules don't make any sense. Consider a few examples: In New York City on the last day of every year, millions of people stand in the freezing cold and cheer wildly at a ball dropping from a pole. There are the equally bizarre New Year's practices of eating twelve grapes at midnight with great passion in Spain, eating a spoonful of lentils for good luck in Chile, and filling barbed wire with flammable material and swinging it around one's head in Scotland. And every year, thousands of people excitedly crowd into stadiums to cheer, holler, and even scream as they watch other people tackle each other, play music, or tell jokes. These routines are mostly carried out in large groups, but many of our behaviors that are less crowd-encouraged are just as odd. Why do women wear a colorless white dress on one of the happiest days of their lives? Why do people cut down perfectly good trees in December, decorate them, and then let them die in their living rooms? In the United States, why do we forbid our children from talking to strangers but, on October 31, encourage them to put on costumes and roam the streets begging adu...

Autorentext

Michele Gelfand is a Distinguished University Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her pioneering research into cultural norms has been cited thousands of times in the press, including in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Harvard Business Review, *and Science*, and on NPR. The recipient of numerous awards, she is a past president of the International Association for Conflict Management.

Klappentext

"A theory explaining cultural differences between countries and individuals based on the rigidity with which they adhere--or don't--to 'social norms'"--

Zusammenfassung
A celebrated social psychologist offers a radical new perspective on cultural differences that reveals why some countries, cultures, and individuals take rules more seriously and how following the rules influences the way we think and act.

In Rule Makers, Rule Breakers, Michele Gelfand, “an engaging writer with intellectual range” (The New York Times Book Review), takes us on an epic journey through human cultures, offering a startling new view of the world and ourselves. With a mix of brilliantly conceived studies and surprising on-the-ground discoveries, she shows that much of the diversity in the way we think and act derives from a key difference—how tightly or loosely we adhere to social norms. Just as DNA affects everything from eye color to height, our tight-loose social coding influences much of what we do.

Why are clocks in Germany so accurate while those in Brazil are frequently wrong? Why do New Zealand’s women have the highest number of sexual partners? Why are red and blue states really so divided? Why was the Daimler-Chrysler merger ill-fated from the start? Why is the driver of a Jaguar more likely to run a red light than the driver of a plumber’s van? Why does one spouse prize running a tight ship while the other refuses to sweat the small stuff?

In search of a common answer, Gelfand spent two decades conducting research in more than fifty countries. Across all age groups, family variations, social classes, businesses, states, and nationalities, she has identified a primal pattern that can trigger cooperation or conflict. Her fascinating conclusion: behavior is highly influenced by the perception of threat.

“A useful and engaging take on human behavior” (Kirkus Reviews) with an approach that is consistently riveting, Rule Makers, Ruler Breakers thrusts many of the puzzling attitudes and actions we observe into sudden and surprising clarity.

Leseprobe
Rule Makers, Rule Breakers

1

A Cure for Chaos

Imagine a world where people are always late. Trains, buses, and airplanes don’t abide by any fixed schedule. In conversations, people interrupt each other frequently, get handsy with new acquaintances, and never make eye contact. People wake up whenever they want and leave their houses with or without putting on clothes. At restaurants—which are open whenever—people demand food that isn’t on the menu, chew with their mouths open, belch frequently, and, without asking, eat off of strangers’ plates. Board a crowded elevator, and you’ll find people singing, shaking their wet umbrellas on each other, and facing the wrong direction. In schools, students talk on their phones throughout lectures, pull pranks on the teachers, and cheat openly on exams. On city streets, no one pays attention to stoplights, and people drive on both sides of the road. Pedestrians litter heedlessly, steal strangers’ bicycles off racks, and curse loudly. Sex isn’t reserved for private settings like bedrooms; it happens on public transportation, on park benches, and in movie theaters.

This is a world without social norms—a world where people don’t have any socially agreed-upon standards of behavior.

Luckily, humans—much more than any other species—have an uncanny ability to develop, maintain, and enforce social norms to avoid the above scenarios. In fact, we’re a super-normative species: Without even realizing it, we spend a huge amount of our lives following social rules and conventions—even if the rules don’t make any sense.

Consider a few examples: In New York City on the last day of every …