Technique · Actionable Gamification
Elitism (GT#26)
Let users form or join a group they are proud of (a team, school, city or cause) and compare groups on positive outputs, so members act the way they believe the group should. Chou shows that rivalries can raise giving and loyalty, and that they can also turn ugly.
Plain label: shared group identityAlso known as: Elitism, group pride, team identity
How it works
Group pride creates an internalized 'should': members act to protect the group's standing even when nobody is watching, and friendly rivalry pushes effort up on both sides while the host collects the value. Chou's examples are university rivalries seeded at orientation and lending teams on Kiva. The same force drives pranks and hostility, so compare groups only on prosocial outputs and never define groups by ethnicity or religion.
Evidence warning
Rivalries built on ethnicity, religion or any group of people cast as 'the enemy' can deepen real divisions; keep groups interest- or cause-based.
What the research says
Kiva published lending statistics for faith-based and atheist teams; Chou reports both groups lent more afterward, with no figures given.
AG Ch5 citing a 2011 Religion Dispatches report (grade C), 2011
How to build it
- B2B
- Office-vs-office or team challenges on a shared positive metric, shown as group totals rather than individual ranks.
- Web
- User-formed teams by city, school or cause, each with a team page and a group goal.
- Mobile
- A community name and profile flair that members choose during onboarding.
What can go wrong
- Rivalry spills over into harassment of the other group.
- Exclusivity the product cannot back up.
- Contempt for newcomers or outsiders that blocks growth.
Pairs well with
- Compare groups only on prosocial outputs.
- Ship moderation tools and clear conduct rules with any rivalry.
In practice
Where it shows up
Facebook (Meta) · 2004
Facebook: exclusivity that became identity
Qualitative, from the books (Actionable Gamification Ch16; Hooked Ch8). No outcome number is attached to the staged rollout itself, and many causes drove Facebook's growth.
M1-M3 ×DiscoverCase grade for the number: D. Evidence grade for the mechanism link: D.Many causesAnecdote
Limits
What we don’t claim
- Octalysis is a practitioner framework built from observing games, not a validated scientific model.Actionable Gamification Ch.15, pp.399-400
Sources
Actionable Gamification · Yu-kai Chou
Ch.5, p.82 · Ch.5, p.83 · Ch.5, p.84 · Ch.16, p.435 · Ch.5, p.65 · Ch.9, p.195
Book content is paraphrased, never quoted at length. Last verified October 24, 2026.
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