Loyalty - why and how?

This coming Wednesday at the Ideas Cafe, we will be discussing the why and how of loyalty.

Why do we feel loyalty to a country, a community, a person, a brand ?

Seems to me it is an identity that stands out from other similar entities.

Apart from the born into family and tribal ties, maybe there are qualities in these identities that deserve our admiration and therefore our loyalty.

Perhaps our emotional chord resonates and urge us to join a common cause, to be part of a social group.

Acceptance and promise of mutual support is another common reason for invoking loyalty.

Or can it be as basic as trying to have more of a good experience we had in the past?

Trust likely plays a big part. At the very least we are trusting the entity we are loyal to to remain the same as we know it before.

It is also very possible that we are lazy in figuring things out ourselves and find it easier to be loyal and just follow the herd or some accepted authority?

With greater division of labor comes specialization and the individual silos of expertise we find ourselves in.  We have to trust those we delegate to to cooperate as we expect them to. We have had failures from these cooperation partners in the past.  When we find someone that we can depend on in an area we have no expertise in, we trust them.  Is this loyalty?

What about tribalism. Are we driven to be loyal to leaders of our community because we want to emphasize our identity of belonging to the community in our dealings with outsiders? Or just plain suspicion of outsiders make us by default loyal to our tribe?

Attacks on our community make us more loyal to our community and its leaders? (Is that why political leaders  resort to talking about outside threats to boaster domestic support?  Is world peace not possible unless there are threats from aliens?)

Would a prominent figure get more loyalty by getting closer to its followers or get more of a halo effect by staying majestic? (How should the royal family deal with the public?)

Should a corporation use its resources to build up a better public stature to garner admiration or spend more on salaries in order to raise the loyalty of its employees?

Is brand loyalty for a product or supplier based on favorable past experience, endorsement by respected authority, approval by the consumer's peers, good warranty and service, consistent competitive pricing?

Can we live in a world without loyalty? Is loyalty an integral part of socialization? Is it all emotion? Logic used to justify the emotion felt? A way for social bond to overcome logical objection?

Let's hear your ideas on Wednesday.