Michele Gelfand

Michele Gelfand is a Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Professor of Psychology (by courtesy) at Stanford University. She directs the Culture Lab, which investigates cultural norms, negotiation, conflict, revenge, forgiveness, and diversity through interdisciplinary collaborations with computer scientists, neuroscientists, and political scientists. Her research focuses on the concept of 'tightness-looseness' in cultures, exploring how rigid or permissive social norms shape societal responses to threats, innovation, and governance. She has received over $13 million in funding from the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, and the FBI.

• Current Affiliation: Stanford Graduate School of Business
• Previous Affiliation: University of Maryland

Gelfand's work spans cultural psychology, organizational behavior, and conflict management. Recent studies examine gene-culture interactions, gender inequality dynamics, and the role of cultural tightness in pandemic response. She has published in top journals like Science, PNAS, and The Lancet Planetary Health, often integrating neuroscience and computational methods. Her research on social norms during crises, particularly the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, highlights how cultural tightness-looseness influences compliance, identity, and policy effectiveness.

Notable awards include election to the National Academy of Sciences (2021) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2019), the Diener Award (2016), and the SIOP Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award (2022). She authored Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire the World (Scribner, 2018) and co-edited multiple handbooks on conflict, negotiation, and cross-cultural psychology. Her lab's work extends to global cultural evolution, artificial intelligence's societal impact, and behavioral interventions in polarized environments.

• Key Themes: Cultural Tightness-Looseness, Social Norms, Conflict Resolution, Pandemic Behavioral Dynamics
• Grants: NSF, DoD, FBI

Gelfand's interdisciplinary approach bridges psychology, business, and computational sciences, aiming to decode the primal templates of culture that govern human societies.