A Failure of Fear

Abstract

Abstract This chapter discusses cultural liabilities during COVID-19, with a specific focus on the strength of social norms, or tightness-looseness, and COVID-19 health outcomes. Cultures that are “tight” tend to have strict social norms and strict penalties for deviance (e.g., China, Japan) compared to “loose” (e.g., United States, Brazil) cultures with permissive behavior and weak social norms. Research in both modern societies and nonindustrial groups illustrated that, when groups experience a collective threat, they tend to develop stricter rules to coordinate to survive. But did all cultures tighten during COVID-19? The chapter reviews field data collected across 57 countries during 2020, along with computational models and other behavioral studies, that illustrate the liabilities of looseness during COVID-19, which can be referred to as a cultural evolutionary mismatch. Evolutionary mismatches occur when traits that are adaptive in one environment become a liability when the environment changes. We discuss how the “threat” signal that typically facilitates tightening during threat can be obstructed, particularly in loose cultures, and the implications of this for global variation in COVID-19 cases and deaths. Ways to prevent these global health disparities in future pandemics are discussed.