I think fighting against SPAM has that effect on people. I have been following their exploits for quite a long time and think they are quite a strange if not unique type of rank 1 tribe. Most rank 1 tribes have either brilliant individual skill, brilliant leadership or brilliantly timed/co-ordinated ops or a combination of these things, I do not believe that SPAM is one of those types of tribe. When you lose to those tribes (an example is Time where my name came from), it is only natural to be lose when you are at such a disadvantage but that makes you look at the war as an underdog and fight harder and perform better than you would otherwise.
SPAM does not have brilliant individual skill, brilliant leadership or brilliant Ops in my opinion. I think SPAM has a different but equally brilliant weapon: despair. Hear me out on this for a second before you think I am crazy. SPAM wins every war that it fights (we shall see about this one, but it is looking to be in SPAM's favour) and often handily because although they have the basics down really well, they never do anything that is special. There is never an amazing operation that breaks the front, or amazing individual skill (LFB excluded perhaps), or a brilliant leader's strategical move. SPAM generally win their wars because their enemy goes inactive and gives up. This is because unlike Time, they fight on a similar level to their opponents (maybe on purpose).
There is never any spectacular move in a SPAM war but at the same time, I can't think of a time where a SPAM frontline player has quit and just left abandoned whilst being attacked (RL or due to attack) or a time when an enemy Op has been really successful. Hence when SPAM end up gradually winning their wars it illicits a different emotion in their opponents: despair. Because SPAM does not appear to be a brilliant tribe, other tribes don't think that SPAM is the cause of them losing, allowing them to devise a solution to the problem instead citing internal problems, which just makes the situation worse. "We could have easily won if there was better leadership", "We could easily be winning if there weren't so many inactives", "We could win if our players didn't give up at first sign of attack", "we could win if we had better Ops" are the sort of reasons SPAM's enemies cite for losing their war with SPAM. The result is that the fact SPAM's opponents blame the reason they aren't winning the war or haven't won on internal problems just makes things way worse and makes the problems, whether with leadership or inactivity, a reality. Once that happens, the other tribe has lost.
Lol...I got a bit carried away