Tribal

Tribalism is a force that has been part of humanity for millions of years. Being part of a tribe or a group is inherent, necessary, and problematic if it leads to inter-tribal conflict or the severe devaluation of others. In his book, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts that Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together, Dr. Michael Morris, a cultural psychologist at Columbia University, has come up with useful ideas to help us manage our tribalism. His view is that tribal instincts are the secret of our success as a species, and so we must understand them rather than deny their power. They provide us with the socio-biological means for group coordination, sharing knowledge quickly and developing common plans. Learning is faster and more effective by observing others rather than through individual trial and error (which is why working from home can be less productive than being part of a workplace). Indeed, according to Morris, our large brains evolved primarily to manage the complex social/tribal environment.

Morris provides examples of how changing socio-biological cues can result in cultural change. He begins the book with a blow-by-blow description of how football coach Guus Hiddink transformed the struggling South Korean national football team into a winner by shifting cultural cues. South Korean tradition required respect for older players that ensured team unity, but not victory. To address this, Hiddink moved the team’s training from South Korea to the United Arab Emirates, jarring the players out of their stifling cultural bubble. He appointed rookies to captain-like roles and ended warm-up routines led by veterans. The resulting “equality” between players led to more fluid play and, ultimately, victory. 

The key to Morris’s approach is that these instincts are malleable. He divides our tribal triggers into three categories: 

1. Peer instincts

2. Hero worship

3. Respect for ancestors and traditions

Morris’s first category, peer instincts, explains how we evolved to fold into our group. We automatically absorb what our peers are doing and mimic it, permitting us to work on common plans efficiently. We especially do so when we seek certainty and security. This does not always work in our favor. In the lead up to the September 11 attacks or the 1973 Yom Kippur War, time-pressured intelligence analysts mimicked peers and jumped to conformist judgments, missing the warning signs for attacks that would prove disastrous for the USA and Israel respectively.

As examples of how peer codes work, Morris examines in detail how the USA entered and exited the Prohibition period in the early 20th century. To stop people from drinking alcohol, peer codes needed to appear ubiquitous: Once Americans were convinced that many of their peers were no longer drinking, they followed suit. To change the paradigm back required different kinds of cues. In that case, conspicuous and consistent signals by an active minority, especially involving respected figures, prompted the change back to drinking. 

Today, peer conformity is heightened through social media, causing attitudes to metastasize over global issues, often without reflection. Whether it is reactions to wars in Gaza, COVID-19 or, on a smaller scale, a run on AI stocks due to a Substack article, people veer left and right without knowing why. Often, the cause is customized social media feeds affirming peoples’ peer group cues. This has significant political consequences, including the formation of warring political camps between and within nations.

The second instinct involves aspirational hero worship, or the desire to emulate the best, and thereby gain esteem. Societies reward high contributors, whether with a Pulitzer Prize or a Super Bowl ring, and this motivates us to emulate such heroes and act toward the norms they represent. Whereas peer codes are driven by pervasive behavioral signals, hero worship is driven by tribal symbols associated with cultural ideals (flags, anthems, texts, or a sacred animal).

Our need for esteem means that we copy the social codes of those around us. Philanthropists will write checks to organizations favored by their peers because they thereby gain recognition for doing so. The presence of an audience will increase the likelihood of making charitable contributions, or trigger the shame of not doing so. 

High-prestige individuals—sports and entertainment figures, or respected politicians—can especially trigger the hero codes in us. This can of course become a problem. Cults restrict who are high-prestige examples for the group. The terror group ISIS presented followers with a very limited and problematic set of individuals to emulate. In such cases, the most effective way to change from a focus on a destructive prestige figure is not through reason, but by presenting a more constructive and meaningful prestige figure—in this case, another respected religious authority. 

The third instinct involves our connection to ancestors and traditions. We look back to history to seek rich stores of knowledge and continuity in our culture. We respect the traditions handed down to us because we assume we are thereby the wiser. Interestingly, some of these traditions are pure invention, which does not diminish their power. Thanksgiving as an annual ritual did not coalesce until 250 years after the Pilgrims’ original celebration. In 1841, Reverand Alexander Young republished a pilgrim’s letter about rejoicing at the harvest feast, triggering the idea of a “first Thanksgiving.”  And it was Abraham Lincoln in 1863 who called on Americans to make Thanksgiving Day the final Thursday of November.

Tradition can be a very powerful motivator. During the Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster in 2011, technicians were evacuated to a crisis center where they evoked Japanese traditions, including Samurai codes of sacrifice and honor, before returning to the plant and beginning the dangerous repairs. The “Fukushima 50,” as they were called, slept at their desks and survived on crackers from vending machines, but they managed to lower the temperatures in the reactor’s critical chambers. 

The three categories can also work together in a kind of chain reaction. The Fukushima heroes called on tradition in a time of threat, aspired to heroic action through symbols based on heritage, and coordinated closely through peer pressure to succeed. This reaction can be either bottom-up or top-down. In the case of American Prohibition activists in the 1920s, it was bottom-up. They first convinced their neighbors not to drink, then created a media campaign, and finally ended up changing the laws. In Sweden in 1967, the opposite happened. The government passed a law to switch driving from the left to the right lane, set a date for it, produced a media and publicity campaign to attune people, and on Sunday September 3, 1967, Swedes in unison switched from driving on the left to the right without incident. In cases of interdependence and where there is a legitimate authority that can demonstrate expertise and command over a domain, such as in the Swedish case, the change can indeed be top-down. 

In one of the final chapters, Morris deals with toxic tribalism, or our tendency to easily divide into “Us” and “Them,” and to devalue outsiders. He admits these inevitable difficulties but suggests that learning about our tribal triggers increases the chances of avoiding the worst. Exposure to new pieces of information about opponents diminishes the “Us and Them” syndrome. 

Morris recalls working on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and being shocked at the election-night victory of Donald Trump. After it became apparent that Clinton would lose, Morris found himself in a taxi that night with a driver who told him that it was no surprise to her that Donald Trump was winning, and proceeded to explain why. The Democrats had simply not been exposed to the attitudes and perspectives of Trump’s supporters. Importantly, Morris stresses that we can better listen to an opposing side if they are seen as people—not as adversaries. He cites how diversity training courses that emphasize clear divisions between people (Black vs. white, men vs. women) only increase polarization. Furthermore, we all prefer the familiar, and as a result allow bias to influence our choices in hiring or promotion in the workplace, for example. In-group favoritism is a greater problem than the diminishing of opponents.

Superordinate identities can also be triggered to overcome tribal attachments. In an experiment, football fans were found to be more likely to help an injured jogger who was wearing their favorite team’s jersey rather than a rival’s. However, when the event was preceded by discussing “the beautiful game” and a sense of more inclusive football, fans were more likely to help anyone wearing a football jersey, their team’s or otherwise, rather than someone in an unbranded t-shirt.

Morris has made a significant contribution in helping us gain control over these ancient socio-biological habits. However, he may be underplaying the power of the tribal mind and how it swiftly binds and blinds us, limiting our reflective thinking and resulting in devaluation and dominance over others. As 19th-century French sociologist Gustave Le Bon amply demonstrated in his book The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, Morris’s categories can rapidly merge or amalgamate into one terrible, heated whole: an out-of-control group mind. We don’t always have the time or the inclination to re-engineer our reactions. 

As critical as tribal instincts have been to our successful evolution, we have also managed to turn them against other human beings. Whether we like it or not, we are creatures that sometimes seek dominance over others through war and conquest. The malleability Morris suggests may not be as easily applied to thwart those powerful forces that rare, beneficent, and capable political leaders are needed to manage. 

The founder of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, is one such example. He changed dress and cultural codes in Singapore to emphasize less corrupt “British” norms, starting with the civil service and port authority. Over time, and backed by laws, corruption in Singapore did diminish. The port began to thrive and the “clean” norms were passed on to other surrounding industries, ultimately leading to the success of Singapore today. 

Morris is also a modern contrast to Ibn Khaldun, the great 14th-century Arab sociologist, who put forward the idea of asabieh, the power of zealous group behavior. Asabieh is necessary to win over others, or to counter a threat—and we are not yet beyond such imperatives. The shift ahead, over time, may be a deeper realization by committed individuals of what our common humanity truly means. 

Nevertheless, Morris provides us with new and creative tools to intelligently attend to both nature and nurture. He suggests that an ongoing process of learning and reflection is needed to counter the steady pull of our biological instincts.

We are deeply adaptable beings who can thrive in the Arctic as much the Kalahari Desert, and this speaks to the malleability of our tribal wiring. Morris reminds us that the accumulation of cultural intelligence in each tribe or nation is something we should cherish. One has to wonder, in a world that is technologically knitted together and where culture is diluted and fragmented, whether such heritage may end up sidelined. The threat ahead may not only be our predatory instincts, but the concomitant sleepwalking into a technological oblivion where learning with others in time and space—culture—takes second or third place to the speed and ease of a cold screen flashing flat knowledge.

Morris ends his book with hope. He reminds us that in Bali there is a network of irrigation channels extending from the highlands to the rice paddies. For millennia, farmers would meet at “water temples” along the channels, hold complex rituals and then take collective decisions on how to distribute the water fairly. In the 1970s, Western agronomists replaced the famers’ “superstitions” with their technocratic irrigation schedules. The result was a disaster: the system was too complex to optimize in that way. When farmers went back to their traditional ways, sustainable water distribution returned. In some ways, this is what Michael Morris provides us above all: a reminder that our evolution has granted us a precious gift in our tribal instincts, if we would only learn how to use them.

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John Bell is diplomat, mediator and Director of The Conciliators Guild, an organization dedicated to reframing politics through a deeper understanding of psychology and human needs. He is also the author of the book, How to Tame the Political Animal: The Missing Piece.