The purpose of the present study is to provide insight on the debate concerning how best to organize societies: with more freedom (looseness) or with more constraint (tightness). In a comparison of 32 nations, Harrington, Boski, and Gelfand examine the relationship between tightness/looseness and three dimensions of societal well-being: psychosocial, health, and political/economic outcomes. Findings indicate that excessive constraint and/or freedom contribute to poorer psychosocial, health, and economic/political outcomes, as well as overall national-level well-being. These results suggest that a balance of freedom and constraint is associated with optimal societal well-being.

This article explores differences between "tight" cultures ("have many strong norms and low tolerance of deviant behavior") and "loose" cultures ("have weak social norms and high tolerance of deviant behavior"). The tightness-looseness measure manifests in a myriad of macro and micro phenomena, from governance and religiosity to individual psychological processes. This study investigates these phenomena in modern nations rather than traditional societies. Potential ecological, historical, and socio-political predictors of tightness-looseness are also examined.

The authors put forward a theoretical model called "personality integration of culture." At the heart of the model is the idea that psychological processes may help explain why certain aspects of culture are related to other aspects. To test this model they focus on theories and therapies regarding illness and they use psychoanalytic ideas on positive and negative fixation to suggest how differences in child-rearing customs may account for different ideas about the causes of illness. The strongest results relate to socialization anxiety in a particular area of socialization (e.g., oral, dependency, and aggression) amd respective causes of illness. Results regarding negative fixation are generally supported, whereas positive fixation is not.

Authors study the correlation between maternal behavior and reference to odors in folktales. They find several significant relationships between odor references in folk tales, maternal behavior, and various aspects of infant and child socialization.

This article examines the relationship between the tightness-looseness of a culture and the variation of COVID-19 cases and deaths through October 2020. With COVID-19 data retrieved from Our World in Data from 57 countries with tightness-looseness figures, the article found the cultures with high levels of tightness had fewer COVID-19 cases and deaths when compared to countries with high levels of looseness. Results suggest support of the evolutionary game theoretic model proposing that people in tight cultures may cooperate with more urgency when under collective threat than people in loose cultures.

Authors contend that many of the differences across the 50 states can be attributed to the degree to which social entities are "tight" (have many strongly enforced rules and little tolerance to deviance) or "loose" (have few strongly enforced rules and greater tolerance for deviance). Significant correlations were found between many state characteristics and tightness-looseness.

This article tests the relationship between child-training variables and cultural complexity. Attention is paid to different types of socialization pressure (group-oriented versus individual-oriented; the degree of anxiety created by the pressure). Findings suggest that group-oriented socialization promotes societal complexity, but individual-oriented socialization and pressure-induced anxiety do not.

This article examines the relationship between child training and supernatural beliefs. The authors develop a schema delineating the role of the supernatural in nurturance and punishment; ten hypotheses associating the role of the supernatural with various child training practices are tested. Several are confirmed.

In this paper, the author argues that moral systems evolved as a way to enforce cooperation between people outside of kin groups. Because cooperation within kin groups has apparent adaptive advantages, it is argued that these moral systems will be less important for societies with tight kin groups and conversely more important for those with looser kin groups. In order to test this theory, the author creates an original model that incorporates both ethnographic data and data from contemporary countries. Thus, it is postulated that historical kinship practices will influence contemporary systems. The paper concludes that there is sufficient historical evidence for this theory.

This article examines the relationship between childhood experience and adult personality. This aspect of the adult personality is defined as ego strength. The emphasis of this study is mental health, maturity and the effectiveness of adult learning. Psychoanalytic theory predicts curvilinear relationships but most relationships are linear.