In short
The Art of Charm Podcast Episode Notes
Episode Information
- Title: Three Instincts Of Tribalism and Office Culture
- Guest: Michael Morris, Chavkin-Chang Professor of Leadership at Columbia Business School and Professor of Psychology at Columbia University
- Description: A discussion on the value of tribalism, its impact on society, and how to harness shared cultural identities for team mobilization. The episode explores the social brain hypothesis, tribal instincts, and the role tribalism plays in politics and relationships.
Key Themes
- Understanding Tribalism
- Tribalism is not merely a relic of the past; it plays a critical role in human connection and societal structure.
- Social Brain Hypothesis:
- Explains the evolutionary advantage of larger brains in social contexts rather than physical environments.
- Our brains evolved primarily for social mastery, enabling complex interactions and group dynamics.
- The Hardwiring of Tribalism
- Human brains are wired with three instincts:
- Peer Instinct:
- Curiosity about others, leading to imitation and conformity which facilitates collective thinking and innovation.
- Hero Instinct:
- A drive for individual contributions to the group, fostering pro-social motivations and opportunities for status and esteem.
- Ancestor Instinct:
- A desire to learn from past generations, preserving traditions and cultural knowledge which is essential for group identity.
- The Role of Tribalism in Society
- Tribalism can create strong in-group bonds but can also lead to conflicts and division (toxic tribalism).
- Politicians often leverage tribalism to gain influence, creating polarized environments.
- The discussion emphasizes the need to recognize and navigate differing values and perceptions that arise from tribal affiliations.
- Toxic Tribalism
- Can lead to dehumanization of out-groups and isolation from those with differing views.
- Isolation can create a narrow perspective, reinforcing division and hostility.
Key Discussions
- Cultural and Political Context:
- The current political landscape reflects deep tribal divides, exacerbated by selective media consumption and residential sorting.
- Examples of grassroots movements illustrate how shared belief and collective action can lead to significant changes.
- Strategies for Navigating Tribalism:
- Encourage exposure to diverse perspectives to broaden understanding.
- Engage in environments that challenge comfort zones and foster connections across different groups.
Conclusion
- Understanding tribal instincts can inform strategies for embracing diversity, fostering collaboration, and addressing societal issues.
- Emphasizing shared histories and collective memories can aid in building unity and overcoming divisions.
Additional Resources
- Michael Morris's Website: [michaelwmorris.com](http://michaelwmorris.com)
- Book: "Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together"
- Podcast Link: [The Art of Charm](https://theartofcharm.com)
---
*This episode highlights the complexities of human relationships and the innate instincts that drive us toward community while also risking division. Understanding these dynamics can empower individuals to cultivate more harmonious interactions in both personal and professional realms.*
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00When it comes to what your family eats and drinks, you know your choices matter. You're the expert because you know what fits your life. And getting it right starts with good information. That's why America's beverage companies are sharing more information about our ingredients at GoodToKnowFacts.org. No spin, no judgments, just the facts straight from the experts for more than 140 beverage ingredients. Visit GoodToKnowFacts.org. We are the animal that's wired to internalize the ways of the communities that nurture us. We're sort of wired to learn cultures and drop a kid down in a new culture and they will learn it very quickly.
0:43But we are nurtured by a lot of different communities as we go through our life. You know, it might be the school that we're in and then maybe the religion that we're brought up in. And then, you know, we go to a college, we learn a profession, we join an organization with a strong culture. We go to these different communities and we internalized, but these internalized cultures, they can't all drive at once.
1:11Welcome to the Art of Charm podcast, where we break down the science of powerful communication and winning mindsets so you have the cheat code to succeed with people. Every episode is jam-packed with actionable steps to unlock the hidden superpowers inside of you. Level up with us each week by listening to interviews with the best in business, psychology, and relationships. We distill thousands of hours of research into the most effective tools and the latest science so you can start winning today. Let's face it. In order to be seen and heard, your communication needs to cut through the noise.
1:42And we're going to show you how. I'm AJ, successfully recovered introvert, entrepreneur, and self-development junkie. And I'm Johnny Zubak, former touring musician, promoter, rock and roller, and co-founder here at The Art of Charm. And for the last 15 years, we've trained thousands of top performers and teams from every background. We have dedicated our lives to teaching men and women all they need to know about communication, networking, and relationships. You shouldn't have to settle for anything less than extraordinary. All right, let's kick off today's show. Today, we're talking with the cultural psychologist, Michael Morris, discussing why tribalism creates innovation and how to harness it for your success.
2:22Professor Morris works at Columbia University in its Graduate School of Business and its psychology department. His new book is titled Tribal, How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together, and it came out this past October. Michael shares why tribalism is rooted in solidarity, not hostility. We discuss how our brains evolve for social mastery, not physical survival, and the reason conformity actually drives innovation moving culture forward. It's a thought-provoking discussion to help you overcome the current climate of tribalism. Welcome to the show, Michael. Great to have you.
2:53It's a pleasure to be here. I know it seems today, coming out of the election, and it feels like every four years, tribalism becomes a dirty word. And a lot of us look at it in a very negative light. But what I loved about the book is you actually unpacked the reasons behind it evolutionarily, why it's important, and how it's helped our survival. So why is it a blessing, as you write in the book? Well, it got us out of the Stone Age. As you're alluding to, tribal psychology is the set of capacities and motivations we have that enable us to form communities, to be part of culture-sharing groups.
3:34and that's really the killer app of humanity. It's not that our candle power is that much higher than chimpanzees, but we have this collective brain in the form of, you know, the legacies of shared knowledge. You know, 99 % of what I know or what you know, we didn't figure out for ourselves. You know, we inherited it from, you know, school or just watching people around us. So, you know, we live kind of marinated in these cultures of groups And that's what makes us so adept at everything. Now, does it sometimes lead us to be a little too focused on our own group and dismissive of other groups in a way that's problematic?
4:16Yeah, sometimes. But I think that the pundits, you know, the newspaper pundit class has done us a bit of a misservice in the way that they've seized on the idea of tribalism. And the way that they usually write about it, you know, making it as dramatic as possible is to say that there's like an innate animosity for outsiders, you know, a drive to hate, you know, a fear and loathing that's genetically, you know, we're predisposed to. And, you know, that's not a picture of tribal instincts that any behavioral scientists or evolutionary scientists would recognize. Our tribal instincts are 99 % about building solidarity within a community.
4:58They're not focused on outgroups. You know, our evolutionary forebears didn't have that much contact with outgroups. There wasn't, you know, the population density was very low. You know, maybe once every 10 years they would meet another tribe. But, you know, they met each other every day. And that's what was important in evolution, to be good at building trust and collaborating with the people of your own group. And so that's what we're wired for. And it can go awry, especially when you're in different conditions and, you know, you get feedback loops and stuff. But it's a mistake to think that, you know, our conflicts in politics or other things, that they start from hostility.
5:42You know, they may end up involving some hostility, but they don't start from hostility. None of our instincts are perfectly designed, you know, like we're wired to be attracted to sweet things, you know, so that our ancestors would get fruit and get vitamins from it. Now, if you live on a block with a couple of donut shops, you're probably going to overeat because of that instinct. But that doesn't mean that it's a gluttony instinct. You know, it's a vitamin C instinct. It just goes awry in this particular environment. And I think likewise with the conflict between the red and the blue parties, it's not a reflection of some innate need to hate some outgroup.
6:23It comes out of our solidarity instincts. And the end result is that we don't trust the other side and we've kind of really become polarized. But I think diagnosing it in terms of, you know, what science can really tell us about our tribal instincts are, you know, the sort of the human specific social instincts is helpful because if you don't if you don't diagnose something correctly, you're not going to see ways to, you know, remediate it. You're not going to see ways to intervene, you know, just like with any any limitation that a person might have. You've got to understand the source of it in order to help somebody out.
6:59And it seems with that, socialization is a huge part of tribalism, whereas what the media paints is obviously in-group, out-group and the negative side effects. But a lot of what you talk about in the book is our powerful ability to socialize together, share that knowledge and lead to prosperity for the group that we're in. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's a lot of efficiencies to working collectively as a united force as opposed to each person for themselves. You know, whether we're hunter-gatherers, you know, hunting or, you know, trying to gather stuff or whether we're working in a company today.
7:35You know, there are some people who are really, really good individual producers. But unless they learn how to work well with other people and find the synergies with other people, their careers are usually pretty limited. And looking through that lens, you talk about the social brain hypothesis and how important it is to be a social species. So I know some members of our audience might not be familiar with that. So what is the social brain hypothesis and how does it impact us tribally? So this comes out of, you know, the area of anthropology where they kind of ask themselves, you know, how did we become this big brain species?
8:11You know, like the other great apes, like chimpanzees, are already brainiacs. They already have, you know, a much higher ratio of brain to body size than, you know, most other mammals. The rank ordering is kind of funny because it's like humans, whales and dolphins, and then chimpanzees, and then like dogs are not far behind. Squirrels are way up there. You know, they have pretty big heads relative to their body. Elephants. Cats are way down the list, you know. So some of my friends have been upset to read about that, that cats are not nearly as brainy as dogs or squirrels or other things. But chimpanzees are already really brainy, but then we have brains three times larger than them.
8:53And so it was kind of a mystery of like, why did they evolve? You know, because they have a lot of evolutionary costs. Something like 20 % of our calories are spent right up here. And so what advantage did our brains give us that justified the cost, you know, in evolution? Because evolution is all about cost benefit. it. And for a long time, they just took for granted that it must be that bigger brains give a creature more mastery over the physical environment. And so it was just assumed that, you know, first chimpanzees and then humans, you know, we dealt with these big brains because it would help us like memorize the terrain and help us get a bigger variety of food sources and help us build tools, et cetera.
9:36But then a couple of interesting researchers who were both experts on the brain and experts on primates and monkeys, they did studies to try to test that. And what they found is that if you look across all the primate species, the bigger brain ones don't have a larger terrain. They don't necessarily use tools more. They don't have a greater variety of fruit in their diet. But what they do differently is that they live in larger groups. They have more complicated mating procedures. They have more organized social lives and more sort of synergy that comes from an organized social group. So the revelation was that it was mastery over the social environment, not mastery over the physical environment that our brains grew for.
10:27And then once we started doing social neuroscience, these studies where you hook people up to an fMRI machine and you look at what part of their brains light up, you know, we, we, we realized that there's a whole system for social cognition in the brain that's different from the part of the brain that's like doing math. And that's in the forebrain. And that's a lot of what evolved, you know, more recently, you know, when we look at how human brains are different from chimpanzees and how, you know, homo sapien brains are different from what we can infer from skull shape about the brains of, you know, the earliest archaic humans.
11:08So it's really the social brain that expanded and made us bigger brain. And because the real survival benefit was mastery over the social environment. And then, you know, how does that play out today? Well, we all know about emotional intelligence and social intelligence, but, you know, that area tends to emphasize, exercise, you know, getting along with people. But there's also the game theory side of social intelligence, which is, you know, can you outthink the other side? And, you know, if they have a bigger brain, then you have a bigger brain and you need a bigger brain. So a lot of winning in the world, whether it's winning through cooperation or winning through competition, involves being able to think about other minds and being able to strategize about, well, how can I form a solid coalition with this person?
11:56And what's going to be the weakness in this person's strategy? You know, so mind games, you know, being able to get your mind around other minds, that's super important for success. And it's a big part of the reason why when we become antisocial, it has such an impact on our physical and mental health. So we're wired with this big brain to socialize, to not only compete for resources, but collaborate for resources and share these traditions and pass this information on. And when we wall ourselves off, when we withdraw, when we actually face loneliness, it has serious impacts on our physical and mental health.
12:32Yeah, yeah. I think that's a worry. I think, you know, my friend John Haidt has this book about, you know, how kids using their phones too much, you know, basically being on screen all day instead of roughhousing in the woods and doing that kind of stuff. It kind of makes them anxious and depressed. it used to be that happiness research when psychologists first started getting like serious about let's try to measure who's happy they were measuring you know sort of the amount of joy in people's lives you know and they call it you know hedonistic happiness but at a certain point they realized there's something missing from that equation because they would look at when you have kids you know your happiness went way down you know so why are people having kids you know and they realized okay well there's this other kind of happiness that corresponds more to like fulfillment or a sense of meaning in your life.
13:20And they call that one, it's a Greek word, eudemonistic happiness, you know, hedonistic versus eudemonistic. And I think they should get a better word, but, uh, you know, it's not like these Greek words, you know, are even poetic to the ear, but that one goes up when you have kids and, you know, and basically it's high for people, you know, picture a person who's like keeping alive their family business, working 12 hours a day with all this drudgery, right? Why do they do it? You know, why don't they just retire? Why don't they just sell it? Well, because there's this deep meaning that comes from continuity and kind of preserving the community and preserving the tradition of your fathers and, you know, passing it on to your children, right?
14:00So that drudgery, it's kind of like meaningful drudgery and it gives people a sense of fulfillment, you know, or you might be in the military and you're, You know, it's a hard slog, you know, logistics moving a lot of people. Or it may be that for me, it's like grading papers. You know, why do I bother? Why don't I just retire and be an investor? Well, you know, because I get some fulfillment out of the idea of helping the next generation, you know, learn how to think clearly. So I think that that's what I worry about, that people who are not spending their time figuring out other human beings and working with other human beings that they're, you Even if they're playing video games and feeling a little hedonistic happiness or enjoying their pornography or whatever else they do on their computer, they're not getting that more elusive kind of happiness.
14:50And in the book, you write that there are three instincts, tribally, that we have hardwired in us. And I think it'd be super helpful to begin to unpack those and we can talk about some examples for our listeners. So, you know, I'm a researcher at the university. And when we write academic papers, we're real hair splitters, you know, so I'd probably divide it into like 300 different things, you know, but when I work with business people or politicians or other people that I consult to, you know, I've kind of developed a playbook for explaining things to practical people. And you need to kind of only have distinctions that really matter.
15:26So I have kind of these three waves of the adaptations that account for the human-specific social life. It's the peer instinct, the hero instinct, and the ancestor instinct. And the peer instinct, it started like more than a million years ago. And basically what it is, is it's this kind of intense curiosity about what the other people around us are doing and a sort of impulse to imitate them and to want to mesh with what they're doing. So it's both some capacities for learning, you know, learning from imitation and observation, and also some motivations like conformity feels good, you know, or agreeing with somebody feels good.
16:12And a peer instinct, we see that because we see signs from, you know, even like a million years ago, we can tell from like footprints and that sort of that humans started hunting, like in hunting parties, in a way that involved more coordination, like more like being on the same page and having a common goal than other primates. Other primates, they hunt together, but they hunt, it's more like parallel play, you know, where like you and I are chimps and we're both going after lizards and I might spook a lizard in your direction, but I wasn't doing it for that reason. You know, it just, it looks like there's synergy and there is synergy, but it's not, you know, when other animals collaborate, they call it mutualism.
16:57There's benefit, but it's not really, we're working from the same script, you know. And so the peer instinct is very old and it essentially corresponds to some of what we call conformity. And of course, we're all brought up to think conformity is a terrible thing. And it does limit our independent thinking as individuals, but it enables our collective thinking. And, you know, most of the really impressive things that humans do involve, you know, thinking with other people, building on the ideas of other people. So I think, you know, we should have a more even-handed view of conformity. It's what allows us to mesh with other people, coordinate with other people, you know, be one mind or one, you know, one united force.
17:43And then, you know, about a half million years ago, there were new things happening socially where suddenly you see, you know, an individual making a sacrifice for the group, you know, like a valorous hunter, you know, kind of putting themselves at risk so that the group, you know, brings down a woolly mammoth. And at the same time, you start to see in the archaeological record, skeletons of people with congenital deformities who live to the age of adulthood. And so that kind of tells us, okay, someone was taking care of a person who probably couldn't reciprocate, right? You know, so people are doing something because it's good for the group, not because they're getting paid back directly in some way.
18:22You also start to see way more sophisticated tools that people had to delay gratification and kind of toil away to build this tool. So all of that is the start of this kind of pro-social motivation. This motivation, I want to contribute to the group and I want to enjoy the esteem and the status that comes with being a contributor and the tribute. There are opportunities and resources that come to the contributors in every human society. And so we may, just like with conformity, we may think, oh, that's a silly aspect of human nature, but it's really not silly. It's a powerful advantage that we have.
19:00Similarly, with our status aspiration, we may think status seeking is superficial and silly, but it's a mechanism that both serves individuals and serves the group because as individuals, I have some ambition and some energy. I'm going to try to earn the esteem of the group by building a better sphere, or today it might be coming up with a cure for COVID, right? And the group benefits because there are individuals trying to figure out what would be valued by the group. And we have learning procedures that go with it. And one of them is what anthropologists call prestige learning, that in every culture, people tend to look at whoever has success and status, and then you kind of infer, well, whatever they're doing distinctively might be the reason for their success.
19:47So I'm going to emulate it. And we see that in the business world. We see that in sports, you know, so like when Steve Jobs used to wear those black turtlenecks and have the macrobiotic diet and to meditate, and, you know, I can't tell you how many tech CEOs I've met who either wear black turtlenecks or meditate or have macrobiotic diets. And as we saw in the case of Elizabeth Holmes, you know, who imitated several things about him, it doesn't guarantee success, you know, because we're, you know, we don't know if what LeBron eats for breakfast is why he's so good, but we know that he eats something unusual for breakfast.
20:22So we're inclined to emulate that. And it's not foolproof, you know, it'll lead to superstitious learning, but it tends to lead to adaptive cultural evolution. Because if somebody does something that is successful in the new environment, you know, maybe the business environment has changed, or maybe there's global warming, and so something has changed, and somebody's doing something, you know, planting a different crop and it's succeeding, other people will emulate that. And then what happens is the group shifts in that direction. The culture of the group shifts towards what's working now. So it's kind of a progressive force, you know, this status, aspiration, hero instinct aspect of our psychology.
21:06And then the final part, which came in the last hundred thousand years, and to a lot of people, It sounds like the most primitive of all of these ways that we're wired. It's the ancestor instinct, and it corresponds to the kind of deep curiosity we have about what the past generation was doing. Why we listen to the stories of elders, why we sort of commit myths to memory, why we watch rituals and then we want to replicate the ritual. and it's a capacity for sort of carrying the wisdom of the past into the new generation and then passing it on to the next generation. And it can lead to a lot of sentimentality and nostalgia and hanging on to things that, you know, don't work.
21:51But it was really valuable to have evolved in humans because it created tribal memory. You know, before that, you know, even though people were, you know, people had the hero instinct and they were trying to contribute things, but you had to reinvent the wheel almost every generation because people weren't hanging on to the distinctive innovations of the previous generation. And once you had people wired with this kind of compulsive interest in maintaining traditions, that kind of created group memory. And so it's an aspect of our psychology that can seem irrational at times, but it was an important piece of the puzzle.
22:29And then once you had all three of those tribal instincts together, the sort of conformist instinct, the status aspiration contributing instinct, and the let's remember what grandfather used to do instinct, then you started to have what's called cumulative cultural evolution, which is that the culture in groups started to grow richer and more tuned to the local ecology with each generation, because you had all three of these things going on. And once that was like a Rubicon when our species got cumulative cultural evolution, because we just left, we left all the other species behind because we were without, without individuals getting any more brainy, they became more capable, you know, every, every generation, because the, the stock of, of cultural knowledge that they could draw upon was getting richer and richer and richer.
23:20And so that's, that's what really makes us human, this, this kind of capacity to live in groups that share rich legacies of culture. And that's tribal psychology. Now, yeah, does it sometimes lead us to get angry at other groups? Yeah, it does. But it's originating out of these three instincts. And if we want to solve these snags that we get into, it's helpful to remember these three instincts and to try to trace how they're contributing to the problems. It seems to me that each one of these add-ons to the tribe did so in order to protect the tribe. So, the first one, conformist. Yes, I want to know where I am.
24:00If I get in this collective, then I'm safe from other outside forces. Now that I'm in the tribe, in order for there to be any order, I must understand where I am in the tribe. So that's the community status situation. And I want to work in order to move up the chain towards the top of that community where I'll be revered. And then lastly, with the traditions and where we've been through, having that origin story allows for us to protect ourselves so we're not subverted from outside forces. you've mastered the technical side the numbers the strategy the execution but there's a variable you can't quite solve for the x factor that some people just seem to have and the truth it's not magic it's methodology for 18 years the art of charms x factor accelerator has decoded the science of influence and persuasion for analytical minds like yours not with personality types or cheap psychology tricks, but with proven systems that deliver results fast.
25:09In just 12 weeks, you'll develop elite level rapport building skills, natural charisma that draws people in, and advanced networking abilities that create opportunities before others even see them. Special forces operators use it. Fortune 500 executives swear by it. Because for nearly two decades, it works. Implementation sessions, group coaching, and a money back guarantee that puts all the our reputation on the line. The X Factor Accelerator, because soft skills shouldn't be your toughest challenge. Head over to unlockyourxfactor.com to apply to join today. Accelerate relationship building to make an impact at unlockyourxfactor.com.
25:51It strikes me that mimicry is a key part of all three instincts. Yeah, because they're all like learning from social information, you know, and it's funny, We say monkey see, monkey do, but there's all these studies that show that we are far more imitative than other monkeys or even chimpanzees. When you set up a puzzle with chimpanzees and they learn how to solve a puzzle one way, and then you show them some other chimpanzees solving the same puzzle in a different way, they're like, I'll stick with what works for me. But with humans, if they see other children solving the puzzle in a different way, they switch.
26:33You know, they switch to the way of the majority. So we're a lot more copycats than other monkeys. And so we shouldn't ridicule them. And looking at things historically, you know, most of the tribalism, we had only experienced one tribe in our lifetime. But now we're in a situation where we're in such close quarters and we're constantly influenced and seeing and interacting with multiple cultures. and multiple tribes through our lifetime. Yeah, I think that, you know, this is a big one. I think nowadays, one way to summarize some of this tribal instinct stuff is that we are the animal that's wired to internalize the ways of the communities that nurture us, right, we're sort of wired to learn cultures and drop a kid down in a new culture and they will learn it very quickly.
27:22But we are nurtured by a lot of different communities as we go through our life. It might be the school that we're in and then maybe the religion that we're brought up in and then the soccer team that we get on. And then we go to a college. We learn a profession. We join an organization with a strong culture. We join the military. We join an ashram. We go to these different communities and we internalize things. But these internalized cultures, they can't all drive at once because they contradict each other. Walt Whitman, the poet, he said, if I contradict myself, then I contradict myself. I am large.
Read the full transcript
27:57I contain multitudes. And I think that's a great description of modern life, right? We all contain multitudes, like different groups within us. And we have to follow one set of cultural scripts in one situation and another set of scripts in another situation. Sometimes we get creative and we, like fusion cuisine, you know, we put things together that haven't been together before. But for the most part, we do what's called code switching, right? Where you get in front of a group of people that are from your hometown and you start talking like people in your hometown. And then you get in front of a group of people from your profession and you're talking jargon, you know, and you don't even have to try to do that.
28:35It just, it just comes out. Yeah. And I think instinctually we think of the cross-cultural as like meeting in the middle and like homogenizing, but in actuality, that code switching doesn't actually mean you meet in the middle and you're, you're doing both half time. You end up defaulting to whatever the predominant culture is that you're immersed in. Yeah, it can be a both and rather than a blend. And I think that's an important insight that, you know, generally people have come to. I think when I was growing up, there was this sense of like people who were bicultural, like they were immigrants or even people who are like multi-ethnic, right?
29:14That they were somehow stuck in between these groups. And I think there's more of a realization now that a lot of people are 100 % this and 100 % that, you know, and perfectly comfortable going back and forth. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot for a lot of people, their first encounter of code switching is from a narcissist, where they have been duped, they've been drawn in because they related to this person. And then they see that person six months later in a completely different setting, and they've code switched. And now they're using different signals. And so if that's the case, they've been burnt and that burn has been crystallized in their mind.
29:55That is now going to be a red flag that they're going to be looking out for. So it certainly could have that opposite effect as we've been talking about. Yeah. I think that in the U.S., we have this very strong individualistic culture, right? And there was a book written by a Columbia professor once called Sincerity and Authenticity. And it was about sort of the essence of the American ethos. And I think that there are many places in the world, like say Japan or China, whatever, where neither of those things, sincerity or authenticity, is as emphasized, right? Because there's much more of a sense that the virtue is to be situation appropriate.
30:34You know, so if I'm in a business situation, I should act like a businessman. And if I'm in a, you know, family situation, I should act like a husband or whatever. And I think that, you know, like in Canada, you know, Justin Trudeau, he's a native French speaker and a native English speaker, and nobody bats an eye when he switches to French halfway through a sentence because he realizes that he's speaking with a Quebecois audience rather than a Toronto audience. But I think in the US, we do have this strong sense that you shouldn't be two-faced. You should be the same person through every interaction that you have.
31:10That does create more suspicion, I think, when people are changing the subcultural codes that they follow. And there's also something very endearing of seeing somebody step into a world that they're not familiar with and fumble around, but trying their best to understand and respect it. And with that, it's like, well, it's perfectly normal that you wouldn't be comfortable with this. But considering that you're giving your best and you're able to laugh at yourself in this uncomfortable situation, well, I have respect for that because you don't belong here, but you're trying. Yeah. I think we trust people when they make themselves vulnerable to us, right?
31:54So when somebody is willing to go into a situation and acknowledge their lack of perfect competence, but try, I think that's part of the joy of traveling abroad, right? Where you're kind of reduced to a childlike state, you know, and people have to take sympathy on you because you can't really figure out where you're going. Well, it's also one of those moments where you start to recognize the impact that culture has on you. So oftentimes when you're immersed in a culture, you don't actually understand its real impact. And for some of us, it's going off to college. For some of us, it's traveling internationally where you actually see the cultural differences.
32:28And you have a great example in the book of a photo of fish. And there's one fish, it looks like, to an American set of eyes, leading the pack of fish behind it. But in Eastern culture, looking at it completely differently from a collectivist cultural mindset, it looks like that one fish may have pissed off the group and they're chasing him out of the group. It's the same picture, but culturally speaking, we're viewing it through a completely different lens. I think you captured that better than I ever have. And that was my dissertation. It was like we were trying to develop like a Rorschach test, you know, to test whether there were like cultural differences in the interpretations people make, the social judgments that people make.
33:09And we went through lots of different animals and lots of different stick figures. And then we landed on fish. And it turned out to be a good way to, you know, to draw out this difference in the people's assumptions about what's cause and what's effect. Is it the individual leading the group or the group chasing the individual? Yeah. And then we've found, you know, in later generations of research, you know, we look at bicultural people like Asian American kids, you know, in New York or California or kids in Hong Kong, you know, who are growing up with both cultures. And what we find is that if we run the study, say in Hong Kong, if we run the study in Cantonese and we show them the pictures of the fish, they have the bias of seeing the group influencing the individual.
33:55And if we run the study in English, they have the bias of thinking the individual's influencing the group. So they have both sort of sets of cultural scripts within them and which ones come top of mind are affected by little aspects of the situation that are like cues that tell us, OK, you're in a Western situation or you're in a Chinese situation. situation. Yeah. And I think what's interesting about that is, you know, coming out of the election, I think a lot of us have been algorithmically and culturally steeped in views of what we anticipated the results to be. And now we're all sort of coming out of it and recognizing that even in a country like the U.S.
34:35where we think of one large culture, there's vast cultural differences in perspective of what happened in an event we all live through. Yeah. You know, it's just striking how those of us who try to be aware of what's going on and what the country is thinking, but we're so much in our bubbles that, you know, and we're selective about what media we look at. And there's a lot of confirmation bias that goes on. And so we have these election night surprises. And these days, it happens almost every election. You know, four years ago, it was the Republicans who genuinely thought they were going to win and were shocked.
35:13And then immediately you go to the inference, foul play. You know, somebody did something. And four years before that, you know, Democrats were shocked. And now it's Democrats again who are shocked. And I think a big part of, you know, what comes out of these events is this desire then to start a grassroots movement. And oftentimes it's labeled in a political way. But in large part, what we're doing is we're trying to harness those three instincts to create the culture and the tribe that will affect the change that we're looking for. Yeah. And I think that in my field, like I work in a business school, there's a lot of people who are experts on organizational change, cultural change.
35:52And every class on that will start with, you know, 75 percent of change initiatives in corporations fail. You know, and why do they fail? Well, because there's active resistance, you know, like someone in the CEO suite wants to change the strategy or change the structure. But you've got all these middle managers who are kind of invested in the status quo. And it's what got them to where they are. And they're going to dig in their heels and, you know, try to wait it out and not change. And I think that a grassroots movement is one of the ways that you can get successful change about a really deep cultural pattern.
36:30And it's called grassroots because it starts from the bottom and it works its way up. And so the usual thing about a grassroots movement, you know, we could point to like Gandhi in India or Mothers Against Drunk Driving or, you know, the migrant farm workers in California. You know, it starts with the people at the bottom, you know, making a change in their everyday life. And then it seeps upward to the shared discourse, you know. So celebrities started to get involved in the striking of the grape pickers or celebrities got involved with mothers against drunk driving and some politicians. And so people who are influential and who control the shared values get involved.
37:14And then eventually when they really succeed in making change, it's because they've started to change the traditions and the policies. It's often legal change that in these groups. You can tell a similar history of, you know, the struggle for same-sex marriage. You know, a lot of people say, oh, it was these forward-thinking lawyers and Supreme Court judges. No, it was a 25-year process, you know, starting in the 90s with LGBT groups, you know, that come out of the closet movement, you know, make yourself more visible. and then it started trickling up into Hollywood and you had shows like Will and Grace that were showing that the same-sex relationships were the ones that everyone admired, which wasn't the case in the prior generation of sitcoms.
37:58And then you had lots of states passing same-sex marriage and you had lots of churches recognizing it, lots of corporations recognizing it in terms of benefits. So you had lots of policies and traditions changing before the Supreme Court changed. And so it's kind of bottom up. It works its way up like that. You know, one way to think about it is that you're kind of changing the peer codes, the peer instinct norms. And then you're starting to change the hero instinct norms, like who's a role model and who are we aspiring to be like? And then finally, it's changing the ancestor instinct, you know, changing like, OK, well, lots of states have been doing this and it seems to be a good thing.
38:38And, you know, when the Supreme Court justifies it, they justify it by like the 14th Amendment said that, you know, everyone has to get equal protection under the law. And that was, you know, that was 100 years ago. And it's time to it's time to apply that to this domain. So I think that these tribal instincts are correspond to different stages of a grassroots movement. And it's a grassroots approach is a great way to make change, but it takes time. That's the only disadvantage. And it proceeds on the order of years and decades rather than months. As the weather finally cools down, I'm swapping in the pieces that actually get the job done.
39:14Warm, durable, and built to last. And Quince delivers every time. Quince has all the fall staples you actually want to wear on repeat, like 100 % Mongolian cashmere sweater starting at just$60, classic fit denim, and real leather and wool outerwear that looks sharp and holds up. I've actually got my eye on their suede trucker jacket. It's perfect for layering and it hits that balance of casual but still put together. What I like about Quince is they partner directly with ethical factories and top artisans. By cutting out the middlemen, you get premium quality at half the cost of similar brands.
39:46And it's not just clothing. I love their sheets. They have items like bedding and travel accessories. Quince has really become a go-to for me across the board. Same here. Everything I grabbed from Quince has held up and it doesn't wreck my budget. Layer up this fall with pieces that feel as good as they look. Go to quince.com slash charm for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash charm. Free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash charm. If you're still overpaying for wireless, it's time to say yes to saying no. That's Mint Mobile's whole thing.
40:25Their favorite word is no. No contracts, no monthly bills, no overages, no hidden fees, no BS. And that's why I love Mint Mobile premium wireless service for just 15 bucks a month. Ditch those overpriced plans with jaw-dropping bills, surprise overages, and all the hidden fees. Mint starts at just$15 a month. And you're not giving up coverage. Every plan comes with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text on the nation's largest 5G network. You can even use your own phone, keep your number, and bring all your contacts with you. No hassle. Mint Mobile is unbeatable at this pricing. Ready to say yes to saying no?
41:01Make the switch at mintmobile.com slash charm. That's mintmobile.com slash charm. Upfront payment of$45 required, equivalent to$15 per month. Limited time new customer offer for the first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on an unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Think you're the only one struggling with performance issues in the bedroom? You're not. And now there's an easier way to fix it from home. That's where Rex MD comes in. It's an online telehealth service that helps men get real FDA-approved medications straight to your door. Everything's done online.
41:37No doctor's office, no waiting rooms, no awkward conversations. Here's how it works. First, share your symptoms, health history, and goals through a short quiz. Then, a U.S. licensed provider reviews your information and prescribes medication, if appropriate. Your treatment gets sent to you with free two-day delivery. It's that easy. And RexMD team is there for ongoing care. Just send a message. What I love about Rex MD, total discretion, private consultations, and direct-to-door delivery in discreet packaging. No pharmacy trips needed. Plus, it's care that you can trust. FDA-approved medications tailored to individual needs.
42:15Over 475 ,000 men have chosen Rex MD, with over 50 million tablets prescribed and delivered. This isn't just about performance. It's about feeling secure in yourself and your relationships again. Don't put your love life on hold. take back control of your confidence and intimacy. Get up to 95 % off treatment with Rex MD. Visit rexmd.com slash charm. That's rexmd.com slash charm. See full details and usage at rexmd.com. Prescription required. Results may vary. But the benefit is, you know, even a tiny minority can impact a large majority in the change that follows. They can. It can be like a snowball.
42:57that gains, you know, yeah, I mean, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, it started with like one woman who had no political experience, but her daughter got killed in an accident. And then she saw that the guy who was the driver had been in other accidents and was getting a slap on the wrist. And so it can start with just a few people who are compelling and then others join and then it spreads laterally and then it starts to move its way upwards. You know, they call it astroturfing, When you find that, okay, these anti-climate change citizens are really just paid by the oil companies. Okay, they call that astroturfing because it's not real grassroots movement.
43:36But that's more common than you would think. So like the Tea Party movement, that was the Koch brothers. The Koch brothers, they trained a bunch of people to go back to their communities and start these anti-Obama, anti-tax things. And, you know, a lot of the people they trained succeeded, but then lots of chapters sprouted up in neighboring communities that they hadn't trained, you know. So it's not like AstroTurf. It becomes real grass. And I think Trump's movement was like that, too. He obviously put, you know, some of his own money into it. But in the end, he spent a lot less, you know, in this election, he spent a tenth of what Kamala spent.
44:13And you have a lot of really passionate people who really felt like he was protecting the American dream or something. What I think is important to point out is you can't skip the peer instinct. So there is this desire to be the hero, to step in and influence. But in actuality, we have to start a level below at the peer and get a small group of individuals together before we just jump in and say, I'm the hero. I'm going to save things. I'm going to change things X, Y, and Z. And in a lot of those movements that get labeled as AstroTurf, they're not actually peers. They haven't done anything peer-related at all.
44:53They try to skip the step with money and influence and amplification to bypass peer movements and pay their way to the hero step. Yeah. I mean, I agree with that analysis of the national political situation that it's about living in these information processing bubbles where you're getting a lot of validation for what you already think. But I think that, you know, I think that successful political campaigns, even at the national level, sometimes they tap into something that already exists and sometimes they can kind of ferment something, you know, but there have to be some shared beliefs among the rank and file, the ordinary people in order to get passion, you know, in order to get people mobilizing their neighbors to go vote.
45:42Right. That's what I'm getting at with the peer instinct, where if you bypass that by lumping people together and saying, oh, we're peers with no actual real solidarity behind that, you're missing the point of what a grassroots movement is, where it's a recognition that we're bringing the mother most impacted by drunk driving to the forefront of the movement, not paying her behind the scenes and hoping that we can bypass by being the hero. it's recognizing that it's a group of peers at first who come together. And the great part about this is that's how change has happened both directions, red, blue, you name it.
46:18It started in that way. And unfortunately, with the amount of money now being poured into politics, we think that with amplification of the message and owning the algorithms and platforms that we can influence it and bypass that peer. And oftentimes what you end up seeing is these jokes of the astroturfing on both sides of the aisle looking really foolish. I think movements don't have to be pristine. They don't have to be like a Maoist insurrection in the countryside. A lot of movements, even good movements, it's a kind of partnership of concerned people on the front line and experienced organizers who come in and help or foundations or wealthy people who happen to agree.
47:03And so, and it's not just a modern phenomenon. You look at Gandhi could succeed living his life of poverty because he had millionaire industrialists supporting his cause. And sometimes you need money. So a movement doesn't have to be pristine, but it does have to catch on. And I think a grassroots movement, it operates through escalation of commitment. You know, so if you get, say you, some Greenpeace person, you know, stops you on the sidewalk, they get you to sign something. After you've signed it, then you feel like, yeah, I should give some money, you know, then you've given some money and then you're at a dinner party and you're like, you know, we should really care more about the whales, you know, because you've taken this small step and then this medium step, then you're going to take a bigger step.
47:48And so grassroots organizing, it's not just telling people to vote. It's getting people to volunteer and so that they start taking action towards a cause. And then their commitment to the cause is higher than it would be otherwise. You know, all these people going around with petitions, part of it is to bring new people in, but part of it is to strengthen the commitment of that petition seeker because the act of seeking other people's signatures galvanizes my commitment. Yeah. And most of those movements, it's the peers being the signatures ahead of yours. So very rarely if you're stopped on the street and you're the first signature on the clipboard, well, you actually join the cause.
48:33But we start to recognize that other people just like us are signing the signature in our neighborhood and the list is growing. And I want to be part of that. I want to be part of that 100 ,000 peers who feel the same way as me. Yeah, I sometimes wonder whether the first page of signatures is fake because nobody wants to join a cause that has no other people in it. So looking at the last part of the book and toxic tribalism, you know, kind of started there with the political discussion and the discourse around tribalism. But it sounds like a lot of these instincts have helped us move forward, capitalize on this group tribal knowledge to advance society.
49:15When does tribalism actually become toxic outside of the political stuff that we discussed? I tried to think about a couple of examples in the book. I tried to think about the red-blue conflict. I tried to think about the record racial protests about inequality in the workplace. And I tried to think about the sectarian conflict, the religious conflict that we see in different parts of the world. And I think that each of them comes from a tribal instinct that starts rippling out of control. And it usually happens through some kind of feedback loop. So for the political thing, I think one thing that's pretty clear about the difference between now and, say, a generation ago or two generations ago is first that the country has had massive residential sorting.
50:05Democrats moved to the coasts, Republicans moved to the heartland, you know. And then we started to have sorting by party in terms of your news sources, whether it was cable television or websites, blogs, and then social media feeds is the most viral. And so we become enveloped by these environments where almost everybody shares our political views. And our conformist instincts cause that to happen. But then once we're in those environments, the conformity becomes really dangerous because, you know, this impulse of just taking on the beliefs of the people that are around us, whether on our television screen or our neighbors, and we're not even aware that we do it.
50:51You know, we just internalize it. And then we think we're being objective because we consume more news than anyone ever did before. But we're really getting a sort of narrow range of the full spectrum of news. And so I think that's a case of a feedback loop where the peer instinct kind of changed our environments. And then the kind of conformist learning that we always engaged in became really problematic because of these new environments that we're in. And when you diagnose it that way, it's not like it makes the problem go away, but at least it suggests solutions that you wouldn't think of if you thought it came from some sort of innate desire to hate other people.
51:31And, you know, one of the solutions is, you know, we need to get out of our sordid neighborhoods, right? You know, so I live on the Upper West Side of New York and, you know, it's pretty democratic, you know, and there's just all these every day, everything I see, it just sort of reinforces that blue tribe mentality, you know, whether it's the Whole Foods, the Lululemon, you know, if you look at congressional districts, Whole Foods and Lululemons are almost always in blue tribe neighborhoods. Cracker Barrels and Hobby Lobby's are in red tribe neighborhoods. So it's important to, you know, take vacations in places that expose us to different parts of the country.
52:10You know, if we want to think of ourselves as curious, open-minded people, we should try to, you know, break out of our bubble every now and then and, you know, change the channel. You know, it's painful to watch Fox news if you're a Democrat, but you should try to do it or at least, you know, read The Economist or read, you know, read some libertarian things to get a sense of the other perspective. And, you know, so if you think that it's coming from this sort of like unconscious conformity, there are things you can do to, you know, free yourself from it and things you can do to try to affect the people around you to kind of break down the bubbles.
52:42I think from a toxicity standpoint, the two things that stand out for me is the dehumanization of the out group and the isolation from kin and friends who maybe are in quote unquote the out group. So you see this in cult like behavior. You see these movements to isolate you from what is the out group, immerse you in the in group. And over time through that immersion, you feel that the only acceptable culture is this cult like phenomenon that you're a part of. And you're isolated from family members. You're not inviting your aunts and uncles to the Thanksgiving dinner coming up because of who they voted for.
53:22You're dehumanizing the other side in the language that you choose to use and isolating them. And I think that has led to a lot of the toxicity that's just turned a bunch of people off from politics in general. I understand the need to move people to vote. And oftentimes we have to prey on hatred and fear to motivate humans to take action. But the downside of that is, you know, now we're approaching Thanksgiving and we got to sit across from each other. We're all Americans here. And it is a toxic environment when we've started to label either side in such ways. The other thing I want to add to that as well is when people become afraid, they cling to their safety that much harder, which is their in-group preference.
54:07And if that tribal embrace is not there, well, then there's no relief. So if the tribe is going to be strong, well, then, of course, you're going to have not be so welcome to outgroups. And if that group is loose, then you will be. So what good is the safety and the utility of that group if it's not close-knit, if it's not exclusive, if it's not regimented in order to be in there when you actually feel like you earned that spot? Yeah. It's like, do you need boundaries to have a cohesive group? Is that the idea? I think there is a tradeoff there, and I think it's a challenge to develop big tent movements, you know, as opposed to movements that are narrower.
54:51But I do think that tribal motivations can be used in inclusive populism, just like they can be used in divisive populism. And I can point to a lot of examples, but given that Thanksgiving is coming up, I always like the example of Abraham Lincoln, because, you know, we think our politics is divided today, but he took over with less than 40 % of the popular vote. Seven states seceded before his inauguration. The Civil War started, you know, a few weeks after it. And in his first inauguration, you know, he was looking at this really difficult task and he said, the mystic chords of memory will swell the chorus of the union.
55:29You know, and people were like, what is he talking about? But he really believed that if we thought about the past, if we thought about our common ancestors, we would be able to get beyond the current misunderstanding. And one of the things that he did, in addition to all these great speeches like the Gettysburg Address, where he talked about our forefathers came to this land, you know, drawing attention to the ancestors, he started the holiday of Thanksgiving. And now we all grow up thinking that, you know, that pilgrims invented Thanksgiving. Well, the pilgrims had a feast, you know, when they had their first successful harvest.
56:00They didn't call it a Thanksgiving. And it got kind of confused over time because Puritans did hold something called a Thanksgiving, but that was like a prayer ceremony. And the feast that they held was, you know, they were like drinking and shooting off guns. And it was a very different kind of thing. And around the 1860s, a bunch of like thought leaders of the time thought, you know, OK, the country's going really divided. Maybe we should have a national holiday in the autumn that is like about reconciliation and togetherness. and memory and thanksgiving. And, you know, they had been lofting this idea to several presidents, but it was Lincoln who thought, yeah, you know, that's what we need.
56:41And, you know, it wasn't like the South in the first year that in 1863, it's not like the South really got on board, but after the Civil War, they did. And, you know, within a decade, it was regarded as like a national ritual, like a sacred tradition, and it brought people together. So looking at the past and thinking about what we've inherited from the past can be a way of building unity. It's not always going to be a way of building division. Well, it's a great place to end it. Thank you so much for joining us, Michael. Where can our audience find out more about the book and the work that you do?
57:19Well, there's a website for the book. It's called tribalbook.org. I also have a website, michaelwmorris.com, where you can read about my research and the book. I'm at Columbia University in New York, which is known for tribalism of a different kind. But you can look me up at the university website as well. And I love to get emails from people. And, you know, please take a look at the book or enjoy this podcast. Thank you for joining us. We really appreciate it. Thanks for having me.
57:58What a fantastic episode. And now comes the part where we showcase one of our members of our X Factor Accelerator. Take it away, Eric. My name is Eric Douglas. I work in the nonprofit field. The reason why I joined X Factor is I wanted to have deeper relationships. I also wanted to build opportunities around dating, career, and social life on my terms. X Factor has helped immensely, helped me see through my own patterns and behaviors, got me to see how I was accepting a lot of bad behavior around me. So I am looking forward to building a life on my terms that's already started in the X Factor program.
58:46I've been connecting with amazing people and doing things I never thought I would do. So I would encourage anybody to join. It's very valuable. Thank you for the kind words, Eric. And it was a pleasure working with you too. And good luck to all of your future endeavors. If you've listened this far, you're probably somebody who understands the value of building meaningful connections and expanding your network. Well, do we have something special for you today? Imagine a world-class networking program that helps you grow your social capital, not just through random handshakes and business cards, but through your general interests and core values.
59:22Introducing the Social Capital Training, your gateway to mastering the art of authentic networking. Whether you're a professional looking to climb the career ladder, an entrepreneur seeking partnerships, or just somebody who wants to enhance their social skills, our free social capital training is designed for you. It's not about collecting contacts. It's about cultivating connections that matter. What makes our program stand out? We focus on leveraging your unique interests and values to create powerful, lasting relationships. Ready to take your networking game to the next level? Head on over to theartofcharm.com slash SC and watch your free social capital training today.
59:59Don't miss out on this opportunity to transform your social life. That's theartofcharm.com slash SC for your free social capital training. Elevate your network. Elevate your life with social capital. If you've enjoyed this or any of our podcasts, head on over to your favorite podcast player and rate and review this show. It means the world to us and it helps others find the show. Before we head out, a huge thank you to our producers, Michael Harold and Eric Montgomery. Till next week, go out there and crush it.
1:00:38You threw your love away Like it was just a toy And you sold the world You're a song of a tragedy Cause you had your taste All black on yesterday Yeah, but I remember you Oh yeah, I remember you In my last time I'm out, I'm out, I'm out, I'm out, I'm out.
From the publisher
In today's episode, we talk about the value of tribalism with Michael Morris, the Chavkin-Chang Professor of Leadership at Columbia Business School and a Professor of Psychology at Columbia University. A renowned expert in leadership, negotiation, and cultural psychology, he has published over 200 articles in leading journals and recently released his book Tribal, exploring how leaders can harness shared cultural identities to unite and mobilize teams.
Join us for a thought-provoking conversation about the profound role of tribalism in shaping civilization and fostering healthy societies. Why is tribalism more than just a relic of the past? How does the social brain hypothesis explain our innate drive to connect and form groups? Michael Morris sheds light on how human mimicry sets us apart from other species, why tribalism has become such a heated topic, and how it can create vastly different perceptions of reality among people we interact with daily. Discover how politicians leverage tribalism to gain influence, when it becomes toxic to society, and the best ways to navigate relationships in a world divided by differing values.
What to Listen For
Introduction – 00:00:00
Why is tribalism a blessing to civilization and a healthy society?
What is the social brain hypothesis and how does it impact you tribally?
The Hardwiring of Tribalism in Your Brain – 00:12:44
What are the 3 instincts that are hardwired into your brain?
How does tribalism protect you, your family, your culture, and nation?
How does mimicry set humans apart from other animals that also exhibit mimicry?
The Big Deal of Tribalism – 00:23:46
Why and when did tribalism become a controversial topic?
Why do certain tribes have such different values?
How Tribalism Shapes Your Worldview – 00:30:17
How can tribalism create a completely different perception of reality from people you interact with everyday?
What factors influence the development or destruction of a tribe?
Tribalism, Politics, and Grass Roots Movements – 00:41:34
How do politicians leverage tribalism to gain popularity and influence?
At what point does tribalism become toxic to a society and what’s the best way to handle it when you know people in other tribes?
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices