Gelfand et al. (2011) Differences Between Tight and Loose Cultures

Gelfand MJ, et al. (2011) Differences between tight and loose cultures: A 33-nation study. Science 330: 1100-1104. 

Tight cultures have many strong norms and a low tolerance of deviant behavior.
Loose cultures have weak social norms and a high tolerance of deviant behavior.

Tightness-looseness is part of a complex, loosely integrated multilevel system that comprises distal ecological and historical threats (e.g., high population density, resource scarcity, a history of territorial conflict, and disease and environmental threats), broad versus narrow socialization in societal institutions (e.g., autocracy, media regulations), the strength of everyday recurring situations, and micro-level psychological affordances (e.g., prevention self-guides, high regulatory strength, need for structure).

Early anthropologists speculated that these societies may have different ecologies, with tight societies having a higher population per square mile and a higher dependence on crops as compared to loose societies. Later research indeed showed that agricultural societies, which require strong norms to foster the coordination necessary to grow crops for survival, had strict child-rearing practices and children who were high on conformity. Hunting and fishing societies (e.g., the Inuit) had lenient child-rearing practices and children who were low on conformity.

The basic idea behind the tightness-looseness difference: 
Ecological and human-made threats increase the need for strong norms and punishment of deviant behavior in the service of social coordination for survival— whether it is to reduce chaos in nations that have high population density, deal with resource scarcity, coordinate in the face of natural disasters, defend against territorial threats, or contain the spread of disease. Nations facing these particular challenges are predicted to develop strong norms and have low tolerance of deviant behavior to enhance order and social coordination to effectively deal with such threats. Nations with few ecological and human-made threats, by contrast, have a much lower need for order and social coordination, affording weaker social norms and much more latitude.
Institutions in tight nations have narrow socialization that restricts the range of permissible behavior, whereas institutions in loose nations encourage broad socialization that affords a wide range of permissible behavior. Tight nations will also be more religious, thereby reinforcing adherence to moral conventions and rules that can facilitate social order and coordination. Challenges to societal institutions will be much less common in tight nations than in loose ones.

Relation to everyday situations
We theorize that tightness-looseness is reflected in the predominance of strong versus weak everyday situations.
Strong situations have a more restricted range of appropriate behavior, have high censuring potential, and leave little room for individual discretion.
Weak situations place few external constraints on individuals, afford a wide range of behavioral options, and leave much room for individual discretion.
Tight nations are expected to have a much higher degree of situational constraint which restricts the range of behavior deemed appropriate across everyday situations (e.g., classrooms, libraries, public parks, etc.).
Loose nations are expected to have a much weaker situational structure, affording a much wider range of permissible behavior across everyday situations.
NOTE: Isn't this sort of tautological? Tight nations have strong norms and little tolerance for deviance. Thus, by definition, behavior should be more prescribed across situations. Maybe it's not tautological, but it would hardly be surprising for the two concepts to be linked.

Relationship to psychological processes
We theorize that there is a close connection between the strength (versus weakness) of everyday situations and the chronic psychological processes of individuals within nations, as individuals’ psychological processes become naturally attuned to, and supportive of, the situational demands in the cultural system.
Individuals who are chronically exposed to stronger (versus weaker) situations in their everyday local worlds have the continued subjective experience that their behavioral options are limited, their actions are subject to evaluation, and there are potential punishments based on these evaluations. Accordingly, individuals in nations with high situational constraint will have self-guides that are more prevention-focused and thus will be more cautious (concerned with avoiding mistakes) and dutiful (focused on behaving properly), and will have higher self-regulatory strength (higher impulse control), a higher need for structure, and higher self-monitoring ability.
Put simply, the higher (or lower) degree of social regulation that exists at the societal level is mirrored in the higher (or lower) amount of self-regulation at the individual level in tight and loose nations, respectively.

NOTE: I'm sure the nation-wide data is way overly coarse grained. For example, Northern Italy is way tighter than Southern Italy. There is also linkage to increased uncertainty, increased poverty, and importance of extended family in the looser South. (Putnam, 1994). Also, from their data, it seems like both very tight and very loose nations are the worst ones to be in. A middle range is best. Which does make comparing tighter to looser nations somewhat difficult.

Methods:
They surveyed 6823 respondents from 33 countries, from a wide range of occupations. Data on ecological and historical threats and societal institutions were collected from established databases.

Tightness-looseness was measured on a 6-item Likert scale that assessed the degree to which social norms are pervasive, clearly defined, and reliably imposed within nations. Example scale items include “There are many social norms that people are supposed to abide by in this country,” “In this country, if someone acts in an inappropriate way, others will strongly dis- approve,” and “People in this country almost always comply with social norms.” The results show strong support for the reliability and validity of the measure. Analyses show that the strength of social norms and tolerance of deviance is a shared collective construct: There is high within-nation agreement in each nation, high between-nation variability, and high reliability of the tightness-looseness scale means. The scale has high convergent validity with expert ratings, unobtrusive measures, and survey data from representative samples; is able to adequately discriminate between cultural regions; and is distinct from other cultural dimensions.

Constraint in everyday social situations: Participants rated the appropriateness of 12 behaviors (i.e., argue, eat, laugh, curse/swear, kiss, cry, sing, talk, flirt, listen to music, read newspaper, bargain) across 15 situations (i.e., bank, doctor’s office, job interview, library, funeral, classroom, restaurant, public park, bus, bedroom, city sidewalk, party, elevator, work- place, movies). For a given situation, the mean appropriateness ratings across behaviors indicate the degree of situational constraint: Low values indicate that there are few behaviors considered appropriate in that situation, whereas high values indicate that a wide range of behaviors are considered appropriate in that situation. Country-level scores of situational constraint were derived by averaging scores across situations.

Psychological processes (prevention focus, self- regulation strength, need for order, self-monitoring) were assessed with well-validated measures.

Results:
Ecology: Nations that have encountered ecological and historical threats have much stronger norms and lower tolerance of deviant behavior. Tight nations have higher population density, fewer natural resources, higher food deprivation, less access to safe water, poorer air quality. They experience more natural disasters and have higher pathogen loads.
Institutions: Tight nations are more likely to have suppressive autocratic rule, less open media, less access to new communication technologies. They have fewer political rights and civil liberties. Better maintained social control: more police per capita, stricter punishment, lower crime rates. Tighter nations are more religious, and have fewer people participating in collective action -- more people report they would never engage in such actions.
Situations: More situational constraint in tight nations across everyday situations. Higher levels of situational constraint are linked to greater prevention self-guides (cautiousness, dutifulness, self-regulation, need for structure, self-monitoring).