Cooperative Norms and the Growth of Threat: Differences Across Tight and Loose Cultures

Abstract

Cultural differences in conformity pressures play a critical role in whether and how a society can effectively adopt a cooperative norm and fight against an evolving threat. Using an agent-based evolutionary game theoretic model, our results show that in general, tight societies with stronger conformity pressures adopt a cooperative norm faster than loose societies. As a consequence, the threat ends up lower in tight societies. However, high conformity pressures in tight societies are also a double-sided sword. Sometimes, a tight society may conform to a defective norm at the beginning of a threat, leading to a faster escalation of threat at the early stage of a threat. Nevertheless, as threat increases, tight societies are able to switch to a cooperative norm quickly and slow down the growth of threat, so eventually the threat levels in tight societies are close to or lower than that in loose societies. Our findings bring insight into how cultural differences in conformity pressures influence different societies' success in dealing with collective threats.