Humans are conditioned(被训练成；习惯于) to form allegiances(忠诚；效忠对象) extremely quickly, a type of behaviour sometimes called the “minimal group effect(最小群体效应)”. In a famous series of experiments, a social psychologist called Henri Tajfel found that you can divide strangers into groups on totally arbitrary grounds—how good they are at estimating the number of dots on a chart, say, or how much they like a certain type of abstract art, or even just on the basis of a coin toss—and they will immediately start to favour members of their own group when then asked to distribute rewards.(在一系列著名实验中，社会心理学家亨利·塔杰菲尔发现，你可以完全任意地把陌生人分成群体——比如看他们估计图表上圆点数量的能力，或者看他们有多喜欢某种抽象艺术，甚至仅仅靠抛硬币——然后，当你要求他们分配奖励时，他们立刻就会偏袒自己群体的成员。)
人类天生就会极快地结成同盟，这种行为有时被称为“最小群体效应”。在一系列著名实验中，社会心理学家亨利·塔杰菲尔发现，你可以完全任意地把陌生人分成不同群体——比如看他们估计图表上圆点数量的能力，或者看他们有多喜欢某种抽象艺术，甚至仅仅靠抛硬币来决定——然后，当你要求他们分配奖励时，他们立刻就会偏袒自己所属群体的成员。
If people are prepared to start dividing the world into “us” and “them” based on whether someone likes Mondrian, it’s no surprise that they form strong identities and loyalties based on where they go to work every day.(如果人们仅仅因为某人喜不喜欢蒙德里安，就准备把世界分成“我们”和“他们”，那么他们会根据每天上班的地方形成强烈的身份认同和忠诚感，也就不足为奇了。) One of the small diversions(消遣；娱乐) of office life is watching to see how quickly joiners(新加入者；新员工) start using the word “we” to refer to their new employer: it’s usually instantaneous(瞬间的；即刻的) and occasionally takes place during the interview.
如果人们仅仅因为某人喜不喜欢蒙德里安，就准备把世界分成“我们”和“他们”，那么他们会根据每天上班的地方形成强烈的身份认同和忠诚感，也就不足为奇了。办公室生活的小乐趣之一，就是观察新员工多快开始用“我们”来指代新雇主：通常快得瞬间发生，偶尔甚至在面试时就出现了。
But if you work for a large enough company, you do not belong only to the organisation. You have “nested identities(嵌套身份)”: you are also a member of a department, and of a team within that department, and perhaps of smaller groups as well. These other in-groups(内群体；自己人群体) can really matter. A research meta-analysis by Michael Riketta of the University of Tübingen and Rolf van Dick of Goethe University finds that on average employees identify more strongly with their work group than with their organisation.(图宾根大学的迈克尔·里凯塔和歌德大学的罗尔夫·范·迪克进行的一项研究元分析发现，平均而言，员工对工作团队的认同感强于对组织的认同感。)
但如果你在一家足够大的公司工作，你就不只属于这个组织。你拥有“嵌套身份”：你同时是某个部门的成员，也是该部门内某个团队的成员，或许还属于更小的群体。这些其他的内群体可能非常重要。图宾根大学的迈克尔·里凯塔和歌德大学的罗尔夫·范·迪克进行的一项研究元分析发现，平均而言，员工对工作团队的认同感强于对组织的认同感。