Cultural Tightness Predicts Regional Sociopolitical Ideologies, Beliefs, and Personality Traits

refers to the strength of social norms and tolerance for norm violations within regions. In two studies, we investigated the link between cultural tightness and sociopolitical ideologies, beliefs, and personality traits within the United States and across 56 nations. We relied on two separate operationalizations of cultural tightness and aggregated self-reported sociopolitical ideologies, beliefs, and personality trait data from tens of thousands of geolocated internet respondents. Regression analyses suggest that more culturally tight U.S. states are less open, more conscientious, and higher in the need for certainty. Tighter states also more strongly endorse racial stereotyping, right-wing authoritarianism, and other system-justifying beliefs, but less weakly endorse egalitarianism. In addition, tighter nations are lower in extraversion and creativity. Taken together, we find that cultural tightness is a parsimonious predictor of regional psychological variation across many constructs within the United States and across nations.