Episode 2209: Michael Morris on how the cultural instincts that divide us can also help bring us together

Keen On

Yesterday, I interviewed The Financial Times’ Andrew Hill about the FT’s best six business books of the year. Today, I talk to Michael Morris, the author of one of those books. In Tribal, Morris explains how the cultural instincts that divide us can also help bring us together. Our tribal instincts are humanity’s secret weapon, Morris suggests. Rather than deriding tribal impulses for their irrationality, we should therefore recognize them as powerful levers that elevate performance, heal rifts, and set off shockwaves of cultural change. It’s an intriguingly counter-intuitive thesis from the Columbia University behavioral psychologist which offers an escape from our relentless culture wars.

Michael Morris works as a cultural psychologist at Columbia University in its graduate Business School and its Department of Psychology. Previously he taught for a decade at Stanford University. Morris received his PhD in psychology from the University of Michigan after earning undergraduate degrees in cognitive science and English literature at Brown University. His research has discovered cultural influences on styles of cognition, communication, and collaboration, as well as situational factors that cue them and social experiences that shift them. Outside of academia, Professor Morris advises corporations, government agencies, NGOs, and political campaigns about culture-related issues. He lives in New York City.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

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