magazine issue 6 2015 / Issue 26

To affinity and beyond! How our preference to be among similar people interacts with our social ecology

• written by Joanna Schug & Philip S. Lu
• edited by Laysee Ong

Overall, our preference to form relationships and live alongside similar others can interact with our social environment in a number of ways. The amount of opportunities we have to form new relationships or move from residence to residence can translate into higher levels of similarity among friends and romantic partners in society, and our choices based on preferences for similarity can, on an aggregate level, end up creating a fragmented and stratified society. This might be an important thing to think about when you decide whom you associate with in the future. While it would certainly be unacceptable (at least in modern, Western societies) to dictate who can marry whom, who can befriend whom, or what neighborhood certain types of people should or should not be able to move to, understanding that our choices have implications for the nature of society at large is very important. Like the agents in Schelling’s simulations, we are all embedded in a complex system where the tides flow in both directions: our environment can affect and constrain our choices in friendships, and in turn we can affect our environment with our relationship choices themselves. Something to think about the next time you consider making a new friend or moving to a new neighborhood!

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