{"id":2460,"date":"2023-11-12T12:55:16","date_gmt":"2023-11-12T12:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/illuminated-text.com\/cb\/?p=2460"},"modified":"2024-11-03T13:47:24","modified_gmt":"2024-11-03T13:47:24","slug":"tribes-communities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/illuminated-text.com\/cb\/tribes-communities\/","title":{"rendered":"Tribes & Communities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(Title image: Is this a tribe or a community? credit<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember when we said that wolves are social animals?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was more lies to children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(yes, we know, we keep doing that).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wolves don’t just have social lives. They have a pack.<\/p>\n\n\n

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(credit<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

If you are part of their pack then they will stand sentry while you watch pups#up. If you aren’t then they will fight you to protect those who are. A pack is more than just a set of friends, it is a key organizing unit for their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n

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#down. For interest value only, here<\/a> is a very compelling (non-academic!) answer someone posted to Quora about how wolf packs work (with lots of exceptionally pretty pictures)<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
Wolves are social animals, yes, but also pack animals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And humans? Much like wolves, we divide the world up into ‘us’ and ‘them’. We, too, have packs. Unlike wolves, though, we have lots of packs – some we are very tight with, and others that are very<\/strong> loose. Social psychologists have a special name for our packs: “ingroups”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some ingroups are local like our closest friend, some are huge like nation-states (soldiers in armies are fighting with and for their pack). Some last our whole lives (maybe siblings), and some are thrown together on a temporary basis to get a job or task done (think of group work in an office or school setting). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We can even shift which ingroup we think of ourselves as being in as social contexts change – sometimes a student might think of ‘us’ as their fellow students and ‘them’ as professors. Other times they might think of ‘us’ as people from university X (including the professors) and ‘them’ as people from university Y (including the students).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We don’t even need much encouragement to start separating who is my ingroup vs. who is in the outgroup. Psychologists have known for many decades#up that all you have to do is tell someone that they prefer one obscure painter over another (“you like Klee more than Kandinsky”), or that they have some totally meaningless attribute (make them guess how many dots are on a screen and tell them: “you are an over-estimator, not an under-estimator”). Those tiny pushes are enough for us to start allocating more than a fair share of resources towards our fellow Klee fans, and over-estimators <\/span>. Thinking in terms of us vs. them comes very naturally to us.<\/p>\n\n\n
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#down. This way of forming instant meaningless groups is called the \"minimal group paradigm\"<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
Why on Earth would we do that?<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Because human survival has depended for hundreds of thousands of years on our being able to take coordinated action with people around us (today I hunt, you gather berries, and you watch the kids). We are built to tune into this naturally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Indeed, one of the most famous ideas in all of the social sciences is Social Identity Theory<\/strong> <\/span>. This says that we are highly predisposed to draw a sense of self-worth and belonging from membership in groups, and are motivated to boost the status of our own groups over others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why does it matter?<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
All the motivated reasoning that we do to look after our self also tends to get extended to our pack. We are motivated to share with our groups, to protect our groups, to keep resources within our groups, and to believe our groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This last point about believing may sound boring, but it can be quite dramatic. If the people I trust – my people – are telling me that the world is flat, and some annoying elitist scientist comes along trying to say that it is round, well who am I going to believe? The scientist may be bubbling up all sorts of “arguments”, “statistics”, and claims about “evidence”, but he is not ‘my’ people. He isn’t looking out for me, my friends are! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When it comes to understanding our world, millions of years of evolution have taught us to pay close attention to the people with our best interests at heart (i.e., our group), but has had very little experience with science, facts, or ‘experts’ (on an evolutionary time scale, these things only came along very recently).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you’re interested there’s a nice New Yorker article<\/a> in which a journalist summarizes evidence about this from several different psychologists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Ingroup<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
A social boundary that we draw in our minds (lightly or strongly) that divides people into “us” on the inside, and “them” on the outside. We regard the ingroup as a part of our self (to some degree) and so are motivated to favour and defend it (to at least some extent)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
What makes us pick a given ingroup identity at any one time?<\/h5>
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Many things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Uncertainty-identity theory <\/strong><\/span> suggests that when we are particularly unsure of our identity, we become motivated to latch on more strongly to available group identities – sometimes even preferring extreme groups that divide the world into invitingly strong clear sets of friends and enemies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Optimal Distinctiveness Theory<\/strong> <\/span> talks about the way we constantly juggle a motivation to belong (i.e., we don’t want to be the only one in the room who is different from everyone else) against a motivation to stand out (i.e., we don’t want to be exactly the same as everyone else in the room). These competing forces can make us quickly shift back and forth, switching group identities based on who else happens to be in the room with us at the same time.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
How is this different from our other concepts?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Here’s a quick cheat sheet:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reference groups<\/strong><\/td>People we observe <\/strong>to draw some kind of information<\/td><\/tr>
Cultures <\/strong><\/td>Shared understandings <\/strong>within a group<\/td><\/tr>
Ingroups<\/strong><\/td>Groups that we feel we belong <\/strong>to<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
These are all distinct ideas, but there are plenty of situations in which they can interact and get mixed up together so much that they can become a little hard to separate (just like wind and rain don’t always feel like separate things when you are stuck in them, feeling cold and miserable).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example: Imagine several people you know in your daily life start wearing cowboy boots.<\/p>\n\n\n
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“Well that’s new…” (credit<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Reference group:<\/strong> If your observation of this is that “cool people wear these now” or “fashionista people wear them” then you are using reference groups: You are observing the social world to learn something about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Culture:<\/strong> If you share a tacit understanding with these boot-wearing people that their cowboy footwear expresses a wild-west style yearning for freedom, then you share a cultural understanding with them. You are using this shared understanding to code the boots as symbols representing values of freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ingroup:<\/strong> If you think “I couldn’t wear those boots, they are fashionista ones – that’s so not me”, then you are drawing a group boundary, and deciding that the boots belong to an outgroup. There is a dividing line, and people who wear those boots are on the other side of it from yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When merged:<\/strong> These ideas can cascade into each other in confusing ways. Your reference group observations about who is wearing cowboy boots lead you to build a new shared cultural understanding of what they mean, and they might become an ingroup or outgroup signifier (“we do\/don’t wear them”).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When divided:<\/strong> These ideas can be very separate too. Imagine that you are a football fan, and are attending a big game at a stadium#up. you probably share a very strong cultural understanding with the fans of the opposing team – you are likely from similar places, and understand most of the same things about football, how it should be played, what the rules are, and the significance of the current game. And yet, for that evening, those opposing fans (who share the same culture as you) are the outgroup. They are the “bad guys”. They are “them”. And if your team does very well in the game, you might even find yourself cheering that “we” won!<\/p>\n\n\n
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#down. This may require more imagining for some of you than others<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
So we just change groups constantly?<\/h5>
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We can form new groups quite quickly (see the minimal group paradigm above – the bit with Klee and Kandinsky), but most of our group identities are quite stable over long periods. It’s rare that we change which family, country, or educational institutions we identify with (if we do at all).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What does change very quickly is which group identities are part of our working-self concept (recall<\/a> we discussed that idea). You can quickly shift which self is activated into your working memory, and quite a few of those selves are group selves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Quick example: Let’s go back to cheering for your football team at a game. You are hoping that ‘we’ will defeat ‘them’, preferably in brutal fashion and without mercy… when one of their players falls and gets horribly injured. When this happens, you might suddenly shift your working identity from “team fan” to “human”. A few moments ago you had been hoping this player would fail dramatically, but now you hate to see a fellow human suffering, so you start hoping for them to make a swift and full recovery (although perhaps not so swift that they recover before the game is over – oh! Did we just slip back into our team identity?).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When there are dramatic conflicts between groups, one of the things this can do is to harden local group identities such that we have a harder time switching out of them and can become indifferent to the suffering of those outside our group. Extreme conflicts like wars can encourage dehumanization of the other side, which can facilitate extreme indifference and cruelty towards them, up to and including genocide. Extreme dehumanization often reduces the other side to animals (they are ‘rats’ or ‘cockroaches’), meaning they don’t have to be seen as part of the supra-ordinate human ingroup that would demand some kind of empathy. These extreme forms of cruelty don’t absolutely require dehumnization, but it’s a common ingredient <\/span>. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Two types of ingroups: Communities & Tribes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Ingroups are often easiest to see in places with clear social divides like team sports and wars, but can also be prominent in high schools that divide students up into groups (jocks vs. nerds being a popular if highly stereotypical one) or in societies with strong class divides (if you aren’t sure about yours, ask people if there is a “wrong” neighbourhood to live in#up).<\/p>\n\n\n
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#down. People will say that this isn't about class, it's just 'dangerous' there. But if these places are too dangerous to live in, then how is it ok for other people to live there? Should we need to rescue them from danger? Just be a little sensitive in these coversations, because recognizing these divides can be very uncomfortable, and isn't always the same thing as endorsing them<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
In consumer behaviour, there are two types of ingroups that receive a lot of attention: Communities and tribes. We will spend the rest of this page discussing them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Communities<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
In normal English we talk about communities<\/a> as people who live nearby each other, but also interact and do things together (e.g., “there is a thriving community where I live…”). Alternately we sometimes talk about it as people who share some socially relevant trait (“the African American community”). Muniz and O’Guinn <\/span> famously argue that sociologists have taken a looser definition of the term. For them, a community is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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… a network of social relations marked by mutuality and emotional bonds.<\/p>\n<\/span><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Muniz and O’Guinn collate a list of three markers that communities have:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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  1. Consciousness of kind<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. A sense of moral responsibility <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Presence shared rituals and traditions<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
    The first two relate to ingroup boundaries. The consciousness of kind refers to a sense that community members have some intrinsic connection to each other – people in a community don’t feel that they are merely similar to each other in some way, but that they also belong together. A sense of moral responsibility adds weight to this connection. It suggests that there is some kind of duty to the community; some level of obligation to help other members, to protect the community from threats, and to take part in collective community action.<\/p>\n\n\n
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    A car seen on the streets of Manchester, offering driving lessons.
    Wait, let’s zoom in on that bumper sticker…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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    A discount for Manchester City fans? Is that savvy marketing or moral responsibility for members of a community? Both?#up<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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    #down. Of course a Manchester United fan could pretend to be a City fan to get the discount. But they probably wouldn't; Betraying your community for an outgroup is generally seen as quite a sin<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
    That last marker, shared rituals and traditions, speaks to communities having some element of a shared sub culture. As we learned in our last page, rituals are one of the ways that we move meaning from cultures to the self. When communities do rituals together, then this brings the same meaning#up into all of the members, which help reinforce to what they have in common, and helps make them feel bound together. This is why many places value meals together (village street parties in the UK, Thanksgiving dinners in the US (and to a lesser extent in Canada), Christmas in much of the world, Chinese New Year, Seders in Judaism, Eid al-Fitr in Islam, Diwali in Hindu communities, Langar <\/em>in Sikh ones, and so on around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n
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    #down. That's the idea anyway. In real life people will often have their own slightly different interpretations. This is part of the glorious messy reality of humans living together. <\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
    When we are describing these concepts it’s natural to gravitate to examples of very strong communities with profound rituals like the huge meals for which entire extended families can gather. These examples are perfectly valid, but they can give a slightly misleading impression because a lot of communities are much weaker. Many neighbourhoods in the modern west have fairly weak communities – there are some neighbours who know each other enough to have a chat if they run into each other, and really only share interests around local zoning rules and perhaps schooling. The rituals there might just be voting occasionally, and perhaps sharing some fireworks on the odd appropriate holiday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Ok, give me an example of a weaker ritual. Preferably a gross one<\/h5>
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    Sure. Groups of young drinkers in the UK have an initiation ritual for marginal members of their group. It works like this: At the end of an evening of parting someone collects together all of the remaining dregs of the different drinks they can find, and pour them into one cup. This “dirty pint” is then to be drunk by the new member – a sign of their devotion to this new community <\/span>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
    Wait! Didn’t we say that community and culture are supposed to be different things?<\/h5>
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    Almost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    We said that culture <\/strong>and ingroups <\/strong>are different things. We also said that sometimes they line up (e.g., “I am a Manchester United fan, and our subculture values attacking football and developing youth players”), but other times they do not line up at all (e.g., “you and I are both football fans who share norms and values about how the game should be played, but I am a Manchester United fan, and you are a Manchester City fan, and we will mock each other accordingly, for we are on strongly opposed sides”).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Communities are examples of ingroups that do seem to line up with their own sub-cultures. Sometimes they line up very strongly: communities can have very distinct sub-cultures with powerful norms and values (if you want to experience this to the maximum, join a cult#up), and sometimes they have fairly minimal cultures… but the theory does imply that there should be at least some tiny vestige of their own subculture.<\/p>\n\n\n
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    #down. Do not join a cult. It usually ends very poorly<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
    This blurring does cause a lot of confusion in marketing, though; You will see many marketers using the terms “brand community” and “brand subculture” virtually synonymously. So it goes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
    So what happens when someone challenges these rituals? It turns out that people can experience moral outrage and get quite angry – especially the people who see their rituals as symbolic of sacred group values. Research suggests <\/span> that this is true for both religious rituals (such as male circumcision, and the Jewish Passover ritual), and for non-religious ones too (such as fraternity initiations and the American pledge of allegiance). To such people, the ritual is more than just a thing they do, it is an affirmation of their common community bond, and attacking the ritual is seen as an attack on their community – a threat to be fought against. Similarly, people who don’t share major rituals of a community that they live among (such as people who don’t celebrate Christmas in the West) can find themselves in a difficult psychological place when everyone around them is partaking and bonding through these rituals – their non-participation underlines their lack of belonging. They sometimes cope by developing rituals of their own to manage how much they will and won’t participate <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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    Community<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
    An ingroup built around a shared connection to a thing (a place, brand, hobby, idea, etc), with some element of shared sub-cultural understanding<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
    What do communities have to do with consumer behaviour?<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
    A few things. We’ll give the biggest one its whole own section in a moment, but first here are some smaller ones:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Those rituals that communities engage in often involve eating, drinking, and sometimes dancing together in groups. They can frequently involve gift-giving (or little red envelopes of money in China and some Asian countries). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    And, of course, people can quite enjoy buying symbols of belonging. Your author knows more than one person with tattoos of sports team logos, and here is an example that your author discovered on the shelf of a Manchester supermarket:<\/p>\n\n\n
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    \"Two
    Can you spot the difference between these?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
    The bottle on the left is Pimm’s, the bottle on the right is Pimm’s. The bottle on the left is 700 ml (about 25 oz to our American friends), the bottle on the right is 700 ml. The bottle on the left is formula #1, and so is the bottle on the right. There are only two differences between the two bottles. The first is that the one on the right costs about a third more. Why could that be? The only other difference is the paper stuck to the outside of the bottle: The expensive one has the UK flag on it, and the cheaper one doesn’t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    For those who aren’t familiar, Pimm’s is an English gin-based liquor that has been around since 1823, and is one of the two staple drinks (alongside champagne) at several prominent English cultural events such as the Wimbledon tennis tournament, the Chelsea Flower Show (Chelsea is a very posh bit of London), and the Henley Royal Regatta (a rowing race on the River Thames).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    So why did the flag bottle cost so much more? By putting a flag on it, they were tying it into that history of English heritage – and apparently, people were willing to pay a considerable premium for that one printed symbolic reminder to sit in their liquor cabinet!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Brand communities<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    We told you there was a big connection between CB and communities… Are you ready? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    There are some communities that exist purely to accommodate people being fans of brands. The definition that is popularly cited is this one:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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    A brand community is a specialized, non-geographically bound community, based on a structured set of social relationships among admirers of a brand.<\/p>\n<\/span><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
    Let’s unpack that. They are a) communities that b) built around admiration for a brand, by people who c) aren’t necessarily all in the same place, and d) aren’t making it up as they are going along – there is some kind of structure to their relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    You may or may not have come across these before, but they are very common, and exist for an enormous range of brands. Just to give you a sense, here are links to a few examples, more or less at random:<\/p>\n\n\n\n