Tightness and looseness even show up in whether kids wear school uniforms (they do in tight countries) or in whether there are a lot of left-handed writers (there are in loose countries), as Gelfand writes in her book Rule Makers, Rule Breakers. Korean (tighter) magazine ads are more likely to emphasize conformity than uniqueness, while American (looser) magazine ads do the opposite.63 Agricultural societies, where people must carefully coordinate so the community does not starve, tend to be tight, while hunting and fishing societies tend to be loose.64

The United States flipped from almost entirely rural to predominantly urban between 1800 and 2000, and the psychologist Patricia M. Greenfield found that American authors’ use of individualistic words went up, as well. She found American writers began to use “obliged” less but “choose” more, “give” less and “get” more. “Unique,” which was almost nonexistent in 1800, was all over Barnes & Noble in 2000. Meanwhile, “obedience” had declined precipitously. Americans were moving to cities, where life is loose.65

Within each country, tightness can vary depending on the situation. Privacy is an important value in the U.S., so the normally loose Americans tighten up in that realm—they don’t drop by each other’s homes unannounced. Meanwhile, in the more culturally tight Japan, people crowd into bars after work to let loose—literally. Overall, Gelfand has found that people in modern-day tight societies tend to be more cautious and dutiful, and they have a greater need for structure. East Germany was tighter than West Germany; Texas is tight and Hawaii is loose.66

Though it might seem like loose cultures have more fun, the psychologists who study this phenomenon insist the two styles are just different, and one is not worse than the other. People traveling from tight to loose cultures would be just as disoriented as those migrating in the opposite direction. Tight cultures, after all, can provide order and predictability in hostile environments. One study found that people from tight cultures were less receptive to foreign ideas and less likely than people from loose countries to succeed at creative competitions, like designing a new type of water bottle, geared toward foreign markets. However, people from tight cultures performed excellently at creative tasks in their own cultures or in cultures similar to their own.67

It’s possible, wrote the anthropologist Pertti J. Pelto, one of the first to study tightness and looseness, “that tight and loose societies simply produce different kinds of comforts and anxieties in their people.”68

Alina was a loose person born into a tight culture. She admits there was an element of rebellion to her views: she wanted to zig when her countrymen zagged. Alina felt she was Russian by nationality only, and there was little else she had in common with her classmates and neighbors. To be with her own kind, Alina decided she would study abroad after high school—something Marilyn encouraged.