State-level cultural tightness–looseness accounts for implicit associations between American and White identities

Abstract

The present research tested whether cultural tightness–looseness accounts for implicit associations between American and ethnic identities. Two datasets from Project Implicit were used to assess the extent to which the concepts American vs. foreign were associated with Asian or European Americans (N = 357,961) and Native or White Americans (N = 230,983). These data were combined with state-level indicators of cultural tightness–looseness, conservatism, openness to experience, and proportion of Asian or Native residents. Multilevel modeling analyses showed that people living in tighter states displayed stronger implicit associations between the American and White identities compared to people living in looser states. This relationship held controlling for conservatism, openness to experience, and proportion of Asian or Native American residents. The cultural inclination to define strict social norms and to sanction norm deviance harshly is tied to an implicit definition of the American identity that perpetuates a Eurocentric normative standard and excludes Asian and Native Americans.