Everyone wants to belong – it’s human nature. But what do we belong to? Actually, we all belong to lots of tribes and groups, some bigger, some smaller. Some close, some more distant. You belong to your family, your village or borough, your city or region, your country and so on. You also belong to your school, or the company you work for, or your local health club, or your social media group.

We’re loyal to our tribe – that’s kind of what defines it as a tribe. It’s a group we feel loyalty towards because we feel we belong to it, we’re part of it. But of course, that sense of loyalty and belonging is stronger towards some of our tribes than others. Most of us feel a deep bond with our family, then strong but less so to our local community, then our region, then our country and so on. If you work in an office, you probably feel part of the company, but your strongest tie is to your department, then your section or branch, then your regional division and so forth. Sometimes you can break these down further: immediate family, extended family, broader family group (cousins and so on).

That’s all well and good, until there’s a conflict of interests between these groups. Suppose what’s best for your organisation isn’t best for your department? What if the best thing for your country as a whole is going to have an adverse effect on your town? Well then, you’re likely to put the closer, stronger tribal bond first. Or at least, that’s what you’ll want to do – you might let your head overrule your heart but most people don’t.

This is at the root of a lot of global problems. On a national level you could call it patriotism, or you could call it protectionism, depending on your perspective. However much we’d like everyone in the world to be happy, if we feel our own happiness is threatened by a move towards the greater good, it’s hard to vote for the greater good.

This is the human condition. We’re a social species, and our instinct is to show the strongest bond and protection towards the tightest, closest social group. That’s not to say that an action or a vote for our own personal tribe is always the right thing to do, but that you have to expect people to favour their own tribe. If you want them to support your interests, you need to find a way to get them to feel part of your tribe.

That’s what supermarkets do with ‘loyalty card’ schemes. They want you to feel loyal to them so you keep shopping with them. They want you to consider yourself part of the Tesco tribe or the Wal-Mart tribe or whatever it happens to be. Mind you, people aren’t stupid either, and a card alone doesn’t cut it with most of us. But canny businesses will find other ways to make us feel we belong.

I’m not saying this is right or wrong, I’m saying that you have to factor it in when you want to understand – or influence – how people behave. It’s often at the root of a small action by a friend or colleague, and also behind global political movements, which can be driven by a collective fear that a tribe is under threat. For example, the UK vote to leave the EU is ultimately about tribal politics, and a stronger bond to the home nation than the home continent. I’m not getting into politics here, just looking behind it.