Friendship and Diversity: A Path to Stronger Communities?

Why do we gravitate towards friends who share our background and identity? How does this affect our sense of community and well-being? 

In this episode, APS’s Özge Gürcanlı Fischer Baum speaks with Miguel Ramos from the University of Birmingham to discuss his recent study on social cohesion and well-being, published in Psychological Science. They dive into the concepts of homophily and heterophily, exploring how our preferences for similarity and diversity impact our social networks and overall happiness. Tune in as they discuss the implications of embracing diversity and what it means for creating stronger, more cohesive communities.   

Send us your thoughts and questions at [email protected]. 

Unedited Transcript

[00:00:07.620] – APS’s Özge Gürcanlı Fischer Baum

Why do we prefer friends who share our ethnicity, age, or background? How does this preference shape our communities? Can embracing diversity strengthen our society and improve our lives? Is variety the spice of life? This is Under the Cortex. I am Özge Gürcanlı Fischer Baum with the Association for for Psychological Science. To discuss a recent study on social cohesion and well-being, I’m joined by Miguel Ramos from the University of Birmingham. Miguel, thank you for joining me today. Welcome to Under the Cortex.

[00:00:43.730] – Miguel Ramos

Hello. Good morning. Thank you very much for the invitation.

[00:00:47.320] – APS’s Özge Gürcanlı Fischer Baum

I would like to start with our first question right away, Miguel. What prompted you to be interested in studying dynamics of diversity?

[00:00:55.460] – Miguel Ramos

Well, that’s an interesting and difficult question. I think that well, as a PhD student, my research was focusing on minority groups, discrimination, minority identity, how it impacts wellbeing. So I was already focusing on similar issues. After my PhD, during my period as a postdoc, I thought what would be interesting was to expand a little bit this research focus. And then I became very interested about the effects of ethnic and religious diversity. And I think that when we look at those two types of diversity, I think they’re very interesting because if we look at history of humankind, we have been, unfortunately, plagued with conflict due to differences between ethnic groups, differences between religious groups. This is something that’s just not recent. If we look at our history, we’ve seen this. Ethnicity and religion have been very strong forces of division between human beings. What was puzzling to me was that when we look at our planet more broadly, when you When we look at nature, we see diversity. There’s lots of diversity in species, either plants or animals. What nature finds ways of having an arm and a harmony between these different species and animals. Every living being has a role in the planet and nature, and they complement each other.

[00:02:21.150] – Miguel Ramos

I think from a human point of view, and we humans tend to think that we are evolved species, it’s quite frustrating to conflict was going on. I suspect that if it’s true that we are really evolved species, we wouldn’t see any of this. I think because of all these ideas, this is what pushed me to study ethnic and religious diversity.

[00:02:47.950] – APS’s Özge Gürcanlı Fischer Baum

Yeah, so you are right. Ethnic and religious diversity may create conflict, but it doesn’t have to. And diversity is a pressing topic, usually in US, but also the conversations in Europe can be different from the conversations that take place in United States. What is unique about studying issues of diversity in England as compared to other places in the world?

[00:03:18.250] – Miguel Ramos

Well, I think every country in every place is unique because of its history, so its connection it has to different ethnic groups. It dictates as well the different ethnic and religious groups that exist within the country. So for example, when you look at the UK, because of its colonial past, it had an influence in the amount and the type of ethnic groups that we have in the country, also the relationships between the different groups. So I have a PhD student now, she’s doing a study specifically in London. And London, it is a very interesting city because it’s one of the most diverse cities in the world. So the last census in 2021 showed that only 36.56% of people living in London are white British people. There are more white people living there, but then they only account for 50%, around 53%, so half of the people are non-white. I think this creates a great opportunity for studying diversity.

[00:04:17.290] – APS’s Özge Gürcanlı Fischer Baum

Yeah. I knew that London is a diverse place, but I had no idea about the numbers and the statistics. I have to say, whenever I visit, I’m a Turkish speaker. I always hear someone someone’s speaking Turkish on the street. Just anecdotal evidence supporting your point. Let’s go back to your study. In your study, you compare the preference for homophily to the preference for heterophily. Can you tell us a little bit about these processes, what they mean and why they matter?

[00:04:52.530] – Miguel Ramos

Yeah, sure. These are concepts that already exist in the literature, and we used here in our study. Homophily, it a human tendency, we all have this, to gravitate towards people who are similar to us. And we see this everywhere. So for example, where I work at the university, the campus is quite diverse in terms of joining people from different nationalities in ethnic groups. But when you walk around campus, you see this. So you see people of similar or the same nationality or same ethnicity joining together and making these groups. It is possible to observe that. Heterophilic, it is the opposite. It’s a tendency to approach people who are different to us. I think there’s no, at least that I know, any study comparing the two. I suppose that homophilic should be stronger because that’s what we tend to observe. But like any other individual characteristic, people are different. Some people might be more homophilic than others or more heterophilic than others. So these are individual characteristics. But I think what is common, it is this natural tendency, what I suppose that homophilic will be stronger. So people will tend to feel attracted to and to seek connections with those who belong to the same groups.

[00:06:18.590] – APS’s Özge Gürcanlı Fischer Baum

Yeah. And let’s talk about that a little more, about your predictions. What did you expect to see in the data and what was your theoretical model?

[00:06:29.980] – Miguel Ramos

Yeah, that’s interesting. When we were thinking about this, we were thinking about the diversity of people’s social networks. By looking at, for example, my friends, how diverse is my group of friends? In a society, for example, if I live in London, given that half of the people are white and half of the people are non-white, perhaps my friends would be a representation of that, my group of friends. Half of them would be white and half of them wouldn’t be white. We don’t see that. We We see homophily in a lot of people’s networks. We were interested in that. By thinking about that, what we thought, and I think I borrowed some ideas from other research, for example, in acculturation, when we think about immigration. That’s a theoretical background. What tells us is that it is good to connect when you are an immigrant to citizens of the host country, but it’s good as well to maintain the contact that you have with your own nationality, people from your own culture. It is always good, and people extract benefits from the friendships and connections that they establish with in-group members and out-group members. That’s what we a little bit thought about this, that in societies, if people How do we establish connections with people who look like them, if this is taken to an extreme, what will end up where it is a society that is extremely divided?

[00:07:56.010] – Miguel Ramos

I’m not only talking about ethnicity or religion, also about age, for for example, education, also income, for example. This will create divisions, people living in pockets where everyone will be more or less the same. What we did behind this was that perhaps people will be able to extract the most benefits from these interactions when there is a mix between in-group and out-group friendships. That’s what prompted our ideas behind this study.

[00:08:26.700] – APS’s Özge Gürcanlı Fischer Baum

Let’s talk about your results a little bit. What are your results? What are the effects of being in mixed groups on our well-being?

[00:08:38.790] – Miguel Ramos

What we found was that it is the best possible outcome is when people have a balance between in-group and out-group friends. Here, when I’m talking about in-group and out-group, it is we looked at different groups. We were looking at ethnicity and race, and we also examine age, for example, and income and education. I’m not just giving examples about ethnicity because that’s perhaps, I think, when we think about diversity, what comes to mind. But if we think about age, for example, what we found was that having friends of your own age group, but also having friends of other age groups or mix. What we found was the optimal balance was around 50% of in-group and out-group friends. It is when people see to be more connected to their social environments, to perceive more social cohesion. Social cohesion has a strong effect or association with wellbeing. What we think that happened in the study or with these behind these findings is that having friends that look like you, it is or belong to the same group, it is great because they are in-group friends. They are friendships that provide you support. Research says that in-group groups are great for your well-being.

[00:10:02.910] – Miguel Ramos

But the problem, it is that you need to establish these bridges between groups. When you establish these bridges between groups, you receive more social cohesion, and that it is an important predictor of well-being.

[00:10:18.720] – APS’s Özge Gürcanlı Fischer Baum

Yeah, that’s a great explanation. It is like we are in our comfort zone with our friends within group, but also we need to push our boundaries to achieve social cohesion. Miguel, what are the implications of your research we can talk about? What should we be doing as a society to create healthier societies?

[00:10:42.470] – Miguel Ramos

I think, yeah, that’s a great question. I think that as individuals, I think it is important to be aware of homophily. We do this almost unconsciously. We tend to gravitate towards the people who look like us, and we don’t think about it We just think, Oh, I met this other person and we just clicked, and now we are friends. But we don’t really think about all this. I think it is important to be aware of this because then if we understand a little bit better about these tendencies, we can think about ways of escaping these tendencies. I think something that is important to say is that this is completely common. For example, if our friends, or most of our friends are from the same ethnic group It doesn’t make us racist. Or if most of my friends are from the same age, it doesn’t make me ageist. It’s just because it’s the way society is organized. Let’s think about, for example, university students. If you are a second-year university student, Most of your friends will have the same age because of the opportunities that you have to meet new people, you are in a classroom with people that are the same age.

[00:11:53.760] – Miguel Ramos

Then perhaps knowing this, it will require or it will be ideal to look for friends elsewhere because then you can meet people who are different to you and then that contribute with, for example, different experiences, different perspectives. And of course, you benefit from all this in all sorts of ways. And this is extremely positive. So I think this is one of the ways. Another way, I think it should come from governments and from, for example, councils and cities. So thinking about age, again, I’m involved in the project where we are studying how can we plan and make cities friendly for everyone for all ages. Here this is a little bit the same. There should be some investment in places where different people could gather together. For example, if I have a place or a location that is not accessible for people or have, for example, difficulties in walking, then of course we are excluding those people from that location. A lot of cities are organized in ways that are not friendly for some groups. We should try to, or councils and the way we think about cities and spaces, to think about these locations. We’re trying to make them more inclusive because this is where people mix and where people will have contact and will people be able to make friends.

[00:13:14.590] – Miguel Ramos

It’s a way of providing opportunity because without opportunities, people won’t establish these connections. I think a third and an important issue, and I think this is some of the recommendation that you will see in most of these studies, is to do more about discrimination, to do more about prejudice. Here again, I’m just not talking about ethnicity or religion, also about all negative stereotypes that exist about different groups in society, because This creates barriers for interactions between people. If we’re able to bring people closer, bring people’s perspectives about each other closer, then we’re able to allow people to connect a lot better.

[00:13:59.720] – APS’s Özge Gürcanlı Fischer Baum

Yeah, I hear that what you are saying is governments and organizations should create more opportunities for mixed groups to interact with each other. I will talk about this a little more, but before that, let me go back to your study. There is a direct relationship that you talk about in your study. Let me ask it more clearly. It is interesting that you found a direct relationship between homophily and subjective well-being. For each type of diversity you looked at in your study, except race, why do you think that might be?

[00:14:34.460] – Miguel Ramos

Yeah, so that’s an interesting question, and that’s one that, to be sure about it, we would need to do more research. I think by looking at the different groups that we studied, I think a difference that exists between, for example, race and ethnicity and other types of characteristics is that, for example, with age, I might not have any friends from different age groups, for example, but I We still engage in contact with older people, either my parents, my grandparents, unfortunately, they’re not alive now, but I was raised and was used to connect with them, and this was important to me the way I was raised. You see that with, for example, education, income, and all the other types of characteristics. With race, it’s more difficult. Often the way cities are organized, also you will see that they are people being racially segregated. Of course, these are all barriers to contact, and these create barriers that not allow people to mix and to engage in intergroup contact.

[00:15:41.680] – APS’s Özge Gürcanlı Fischer Baum

Yeah. We tend to be segregated more by ethnicity or race than other factors, like you said. Miguel, is there anything else that you would like to share with our listeners?

[00:15:59.570] – Miguel Ramos

I think This is something that is important to share is that these are natural tendencies. For example, we’re going to talk about homophilies. I think that we shouldn’t blame ourselves if we find ourselves in a situation where we only have friends that belong to the same groups as we do. What we can do, and if we are aware of this, I think, and if you’re thinking about, like I was saying, bridging between groups and the benefits that we can be extracted from this. We think about the future of our We want society to be more connected. Something that now it is in vogue, and people talk about, is about social cohesion, the importance of social cohesion for our societies. Instead of thinking just about the groups that you belong to, I think it is important to establish these bridges. But at the same time, like I was saying, not blaming yourself or blaming others for having this because a lot of the structures that exist in society, they push us in that direction. We just have to be mindful mindful of this and think a little bit deeper about these problems. Also, I just want to add that our research was, well, not the best, but it is one study in this topic.

[00:17:10.650] – Miguel Ramos

To reach stronger and more detailed conclusions and to talk about implications, more research needs to follow this steps. We would, of course, try to replicate in different ways and try to do other studies. This is something that we’re looking forward to doing in the future.

[00:17:29.250] – APS’s Özge Gürcanlı Fischer Baum

Yeah, Thank you very much. What you said is very important, I think. If we find ourselves in homogeneous groups, we shouldn’t feel bad. It is how the society is set up. But based on your results, what I’m learning is that we can at least push our comfort zone, push our boundaries, and look for mixed groups. As a society, we should create opportunities for mixed groups from all walks of life to interact with each other. Miguel, this was a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us today.

[00:18:09.180] – Miguel Ramos

Thank you so much for an invitation. It was great to talk to you.

[00:18:12.860] – APS’s Özge Gürcanlı Fischer Baum

This is Özge Gürcanlı Fischer Baum with APS, and I have been speaking to Miguel Ramos from the University of Birmingham. If you want to know more about this research, visit psychologicalscience.org. Do you have questions or suggestions for us? Please contact us at [email protected].