Disciplined Societies Tackled Covid Better

But there is a downside in all

- P. K. Balachandran

In a paper published on www.thelancet.com Professor of Psychology Michelle Gelfand and her colleagues have reported that tightly-held and disciplined societies had been better able to tackle the unprecedented challenge posed by COVID-19 than loosely held, liberal and lax societies.

The difference shows in the death rate till October 2020.

However, as a study of China shows, tight control could trigger other issues which cry for attention. Then, there are relatively well organized and reasonably disciplined societies like Sri Lanka, which, while controlling the pandemic, have had to face socio-economic constraints and spinoffs.

In their paper The relationship between cultural tightness-looseness and COVID-19 cases and deaths: a global analysis, Prof. Michelle Gelfand and colleagues say that collective threats require a tremendous amount of coordination and that strict adherence to social norms is a key mechanism that enables groups to do so.

Their paper examines how the strength of social norms—or cultural tightness–looseness—was associated with countries’ success in limiting COVID cases and deaths (by October 2020).

The study found that tight cultures, which have strict norms and punishments for deviance, had fewer cases and deaths per million as compared with loose cultures, which have weaker norms and are more permissive. “Nations with high levels of cultural looseness were estimated to have had 4·99 times the number of cases (7132 per million vs 1428 per million, respectively) and 8·71 times the number of deaths (183 per million vs 21 per million, respectively), taking into account a number of controls,” the study says.