The Pros and Cons of Rivalries

From "How Rivalries Bring Out Our Best — and Worst" by Matthew Hutson, NY Magazinne, 26 Jun 2014

"rivalry increases both effort and performance"

"It increases motivation"

"Rivalry also increases group cohesion"

"rivalry springs up quite easily"

" the greater the level of friendship with the recalled competitor, the more likely subjects were to cheat. We don’t play dirty against rivals because we hate them. (At least, not always.) We do it because they remind us of ourselves. You don’t want someone beating you at being you."

"Rivalry can also make us overlook non-rivals, which may have allowed Japan to surpass U.S. automakers in the 1980s."

"In an analysis of nearly 3,000 matches in Italy’s top soccer league, Kilduff and colleagues found that when playing against a team based in the same city as their own, athletes were nearly twice as likely to earn a yellow or red card. "

From "The Dark Side of The Sport: College Tribalism" 
by  Chris Dierkes, Jul 2012

"Tribal societies were racked by constant skirmishes and intermittint warfare--the kind seen in a much smaller scale in the brawl above (a few punches thrown and landed, some pushing and shoving, then a scattering of the makeshift armies). The enemey is a great Other. They become a blank canvas upon which we can project our worst fears, prejudices, and hatreds. In the worst case, the other tribe becomes subhuman, degenerate, and able to be killed, tortured, raped, or pillaged."
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"if you cross the tribe, if you are seen as a traitor, you are ostracized from the tribe. Doesn't even matter if you were being ethical or wise--you're dead to us"
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"When someone becomes a chief, a lord in that system they begin to buy into their own image. They can easily believe they are above the law and justify immoral and/or illegal acts. And their die hard supporters will never accept their flaws and unjust actions (or inactions as the case may be). "



"How Tribalism Hurts Companies, and What to Do About It", Robert Kovach, Harvard Business Review, 26 Jul 2017