Social Bubbles: Preference for Age, Ethnicity, Education

Why do many people live their lives in social bubbles? A study shows that most people prefer to interact with people just like themselves. Kasimir Dederichs and colleagues conducted three large-scale survey experiments in which respondents living in the Netherlands had to choose between neighborhoods they would like to move to and between civic organizations (e.g., sports clubs and cultural associations) they would like to join. The neighborhoods and organizations varied in their social compositions and other variables that matter for these choices such as financial costs, travel time, and friendliness. This survey method elicits more honest responses than simply asking individuals about their tolerance toward people different from themselves. The results show that people consistently choose settings featuring more people of their own ethnicity, age, and educational level. The only exception to such ingroup preferences was that respondents without a college degree did not mind interacting with people with higher levels of education. The authors quantified the strength of ingroup preferences by looking at the tradeoffs people were willing to make. For example, people under 50 years of age were willing to travel 5 minutes further to join a club where just a quarter of members are over 50 as opposed to a club where half of members are over 50. Dutch individuals without a migration background, meaning that neither they nor their parents migrated from another country, were willing to travel ten extra minutes for their daily errands if this meant they could live in a neighborhood without any residents with a Turkish or Moroccan background rather than one where a quarter of neighbors have such backgrounds. Individuals who were surrounded by people of their own age, ethnicity, and educational level in their current neighborhood and organizations displayed stronger ingroup preferences than those who spent more time with people of different ages, ethnicities, and educational levels. This reflects that people act upon their ingroup preferences and that a lack of exposure to people different than oneself makes people more reluctant to come out of their social bubble. According to the authors, segregation and ingroup preferences are thereby closely linked and can become a vicious cycle – a cycle worth attempting to break.