tribal thinking
Loyalty over logic
Tribal thinking is the tendency to form opinions and process information based on loyalty to one's group rather than independent reasoning.
The tribe may be political, religious, ethnic, or any identity-based affiliation.
Tribal thinking leads people to defend their side's positions reflexively and reject opposing views regardless of evidence: Tribal thinking makes productive debate nearly impossible.
The term is usually pejorative, implying that someone has surrendered critical judgment to group allegiance.
- ingroupExclusive social circle
- outgroupNon-members of one's group
- groupthinkConformity-driven poor decisions
- loyaltyFaithful commitment to another
- belongingState of fitting in
clan · blood ties · faction · circling the wagons · conformity · group identity · identity · allegiance · in-group bias · bias · polarization · culture war · mob · true believer · prejudice · xenophobia · exclusion · partisan
- herd behaviorherd mentality, bandwagon effect, conformism, peer pressure, following the crowd
- social psychologysocial behavior, conformity, social influence, attribution, groupthink
- collective mindhive mind, hivemind, collective consciousness, collective intelligence, swarm intelligence
tribal thinkingcritical thinking
Objective evaluation of information
freethought · evidence-based reasoning · skepticism · logical analysis
tribal thinkinguniversalism
Doctrine of total reconciliation
cosmopolitanism · impartiality · egalitarianism · ecumenism · humanitarianism
tribal thinkingopen-mindedness
Acceptance of differing viewpoints
intellectual humility · bridge-building · intellectual curiosity · perspective-taking
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