Michael Morris > Quotes

“If there was an exit interview on the hour of our death I would like to be asked the question, "Was it worth it?" To which my response would be, "Yes, emphatically yes...but just barely.”
― Michael Morris

“Each tribal instinct can spin out of control under certain conditions due to chain reactions and feedback loops.”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“It’s not always fun to fulfill the obligations of group rituals, but it’s satisfying to feel that doing so cements your connection to a tribe.”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“An imposed institutional change forces everyone to comply (at least when watched). The hope is that this experience gives rise to, or at least paves the way for, changes in ideals and habits.”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“All of this peer feedback can feel exhausting at times in an already competitive world, but [30]it does shift our habits, often because it corrects inaccurate perceptions of our peers.”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“While they vary in number (there are seven-, eight-, ten-, and twelve-step models) and nomenclature (every firm needs its own!), most are elaborations of Kurt Lewin’s classic insight that a cultural transition requires an [50]“unfreezing” of the old pattern before the development and “refreezing” of the new pattern. The component steps within the unfreezing stage roughly correspond to the shock-wave strategy. The steps within the development and refreezing stage roughly correspond to a grassroots strategy. In other words, killing the old culture happens top-down, then building the new culture happens bottom-up.”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“But well-chosen ads can still work, because [35]verifiable claims gain persuasiveness when critical thinking is engaged. For instance, when Ford’s ads tell us that its F-Series has been the bestselling truck in the US for forty-six years, that’s a claim that can be easily checked. Retailers like Nordstrom actively challenge customers to verify their lowest price claims. If there’s nothing to hide, then it works best for firms to be overt in their persuasion methods.”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“The surgeon general had been releasing health warnings since 1964, but it was only when health regulators leaned on Hollywood to not let its heroes smoke that the smoking rate began its dramatic decline. In 1971, President Nixon, himself a heavy smoker, signed a law banning cigarette ads from airing on television and radio.”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“classic study even found that patrons of a public restroom are twice as likely to stop to wash their hands when others are present. Across many kinds of settings, people are more inclined to act prosocially [58]when they are observable to others, even if these others are not fellow activists in a cause.”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“Conversely, if you want to encourage a behavior, don’t emphasize how many people currently aren’t doing it. Political campaigns used to try to shame voters about low turnout: “Only one in three Americans voted in the last election.” But this message informs you that your peers are not bothering to vote—so why should you?”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“For sacrifices of money and time as well, [57]the approval of audiences matters. Philanthropists who write eye-popping checks to arts organizations or universities tend to do so to ones favored by their social circle. Greenpeace holds fundraising galas with celebrity guests and public auctions because their supporters will pledge more money when other environmentalists are watching. Visitors to a donation-optional park give more when they arrive in groups than when they arrive alone.”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“For more than a century, the team has started each game with a haka, a martial dance that Māori warriors traditionally performed before battles to access the mana, or spiritual power, of their ancestors. Players stand in a wedge formation at midfield, staring across at their opponents. All at once, they begin to stomp their feet, thrust their chests, and thrash their arms in rhythmic unison while chanting, “Ka mate, ka mate! Ka ora! Ka ora!” (“I might die, I might die! I may live! I may live!”). These vows are punctuated with blood-curdling screams and guttural grunts; eyes bulge and tongues protrude. As players lunge, yell, and mug in unison, individual egos drop away, and players fuse into a united force, each obliged to do anything for the team’s victory.”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“One reason for giving, and giving when watched, is reputation. Classical economics explained philanthropy as the self-interested seeking of reputational rewards. However, recent evidence makes it clear that this is not the only reason. Behavioral economics experiments show that people tend to share their wealth even when that act is anonymous and thus carries no reputational consequences. In games where [59]one player receives a windfall of cash, they take opportunities to share some of it with a fellow player who received none.”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“If peer codes are prompted by tribal signs and hero codes by tribal symbols, the situational cue that summons ancestor codes is tribal ceremony.”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“In the army, they used to say, “There are no atheists in foxholes.” It’s an adage about situational influence.”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“Doubt is a defense that is particularly relevant to prevalence signals, whether a message, observation, or experience. When audiences question whether the picture of prevalence portrayed reflects the behavioral reality of their group, they close their minds and resist updating their peer codes.”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“Studies by Harvard behavioral scientist Todd Rogers find that [42]everyone-is-doing-it appeals work better than don’t-be-a-part-of-the-problem appeals, particularly for occasional voters.”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“Traditions are often not as ancient as advertised.”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“A related play in marketing is known as “FUD” (fear, uncertainty, and doubt). A pitch like “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM” sounds innocuous on the surface, but the more menacing subtext is that people do get fired for choosing less-well-known brands. The slogan stoked uncertainty in purchasing managers to heighten their attraction to the safe conformist choice. Even temporary pressures that reduce the feeling of certainty—like deadlines or distractions—induce more culturally conformist information processing.”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“Slogans like “50,000,000 Elvis fans can’t be wrong” leverage this psychology—people feel “in the know” when they follow the crowd. Needs intensify from deprivation, and the need for certainty is no exception.”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“In a domain of behavior where people are so interdependent, everyone has to switch at once.”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“While selective recall is a tactic for consistency focused on the past, resonant framing is one that focuses on the present activity.”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“New rituals are constructed from familiar materials so people are drawn to them.”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“There are times when a leader must move out ahead of his flock … confident that he is leading his people the right way.”
― Michael Morris, Apartheid: The History of Apartheid: Race vs. Reason - South Africa from 1948 - 1994

“Thanks to the ancestor instinct, we can benefit from ancient lessons about threats even if the underlying science is beyond us.”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“At Amazon, meetings begin with a six-page memo. At Alcoholics Anonymous, they start with the Serenity Prayer. These rituals may look to outsiders like mindless repetition, but to insiders the recurrence of a rigid sequence provides a sense of meaningful continuity.”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“Life doesn’t imitate art, it imitates bad television. —Woody Allen”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“When Pepsi hired Beyoncé as a brand ambassador for record sums, it was not because of her many Grammy Awards; it was because she was consistently found to be one of the most admired women in the world. This influence extends well beyond consumer choices to decisions about lifestyle, health, and politics. It reaches an unhealthy extreme in “look-alike” plastic surgery for [5]those seeking to emulate Justin Bieber’s hairline or Kim Kardashian’s derriere. After clinics named lip-plumping procedures after Angelina Jolie, she leveraged her medical influence for good by publicizing [6]her 2013 genetic testing for breast cancer risk and her subsequent mastectomies, leading to a 64 percent rise in testing rates and sustained increases in rates of the risk-reducing surgery.”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“In a paper entitled “Who Doesn’t?” psychologist Paul van Lange and his team argued that people’s perceptions that “almost everybody does it” precipitate their own corrupt behaviors. The team measured these perceptions in some studies and experimentally manipulated them in another. Similar studies have varied what players in a game are told about the prevalence of bribery (almost nobody bribes or almost everybody bribes) and also varied information about the penalty if caught (very low or very high).”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together

“Change advocates tend to be free thinkers comfortable with challenging convention. Even so, it behooves them to recognize that most of their audience is different from themselves. For most people, the inner conformist is stronger than the inner activist. Changemakers do best to work with (rather than working against) this basic human instinct. Our sensitivity to information about peer patterns is typically portrayed as a bug rather than a feature, but it’s a foundation of culture and of cultural evolution. With the right prevalence signals nudging it along, the peer instinct can become a powerful force for adaptive change.”
― Michael Morris, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together