Social scientists have long debated what drives human behavior. Do ideas, symbols, and beliefsinfluence behavior? Or are the forces of action and history less ethereal: money, circumstance, andopportunity, with culture a distant second? Scholars in the first camp are culturalists； in the second,materialists.        In Rule Makers, Rule Breakers, the psychologist Michele Gelfand sides with the culturalists. Inthis book, her aim is to draw attention to one aspect she believes has been ignored: the social norms—or the often informal rules of conduct, the dos and don’ts, the sources of tsking and raised eyebrows—that emerge whenever people band together. According to Gelfand, cultures range from “tight” to“loose” in terms of adherence to rules. “Tight cultures,” she observes, “have strong social norms andlittle tolerance for deviance, while loose cultures have weak social norms and are highly permissive.”Gelfand argues that mapping the tightness or looseness of cultures of various groups — nations,regions, social classes, corporations, and friendship circles — helps explain otherwise inexplicablephenomena. After examining societal norms, she broadens her analysis to include authoritarianism,inequality, political polarization and even the happiness of individuals.        Take authoritarianism as an example: Why did Egyptians vote overwhelmingly for Abdel Fattahel-Sisi in that country’s 2014 presidential election, choosing to be led by an autocrat just a few yearsafter the democratic hopefulness of the Arab Spring? Gelfand argues that whatever a country’sbaseline level of constraint (Egypt’s religious conservatism would put it near the tight end of thespectrum), it can adjust in response to shifting conditions. Threats, such as social instability, causetightening. So it was in Egypt, she claims. The ouster of Hosni Mubarak and the political chaos thatensued sent Egypt’s society into a tailspin, leaving voters yearning for a strongman who could assertcontrol and bring back order.        Making sense of long-term patterns in cultural tightness and looseness through the lenses ofevolutionary anthropology, Gelfand observes that humans have evolved to be highly sensitive to rules,which provide a major evolutionary advantage as a way to facilitate collaboration. Gelfand’s researchshows that when faced with natural challenges, high population density, and external dangers,civilizations tend to tighten up.        Despite the context she offers for how norms evolved, Gelfand consistently ignores materialistexplanations for the various phenomena she investigates. Sure, aspirant strongmen can and do exploitvoters’ anxieties about instability and change. But another crucial element in explaining why Sisi,Egypt’s former minister of defense, won 96 percent of the vote is that the military, determined tomaintain its grip on the country and to keep billions of dollars in foreign aid flowing, banned the mainopposition, the Muslim Brotherhood, after deposing Mohamed Morsi, the inept but democraticallyelected Islamist president who followed Mubarak in office.        The fact of the matter is that the very best research done today by social scientists straddles theculturalist-materialist divide. This work—Matthew Desmond on urban housing, Mario Luis Small onsocial networks and inequality, Kathryn Edin on poverty—highlights multi-factor causes and theintertwining of cultural and material influences. “Rule Makers, Rule Breakers” could have benefitedfrom some of the same equilibrium and nuance.
【題組】35. Which of the following is the best title for this passage?
(A) Are Social Norms the Key to Explaining Human Behavior?
(B) When Cultures Are ‘Tightened,’ Authoritarianism Ensues
(C) Three Factors to Consider When it Comes to Egypt’s 2014 Election
(D) Is Your Culture ‘Tight’ or ‘Loose’?: A Culturalist-Materialist Debate