Why are people politically ‘segregated’? Social behaviour holds a clue

"People in the United States tend to associate with others who hold views that are similar to their own — but more radical.

In recent decades, people in the United States have become increasingly isolated from those with opposing political opinions. This ‘political segregation’ stems partly from a desire to interact with people who have more extreme political leanings than one’s own, a new study shows¹.

Previous research has shown that political segregation is driven by individuals’ tendency to interact with others who share their political views. To understand whether other factors are responsible, Amit Goldenberg at the Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts, and his colleagues showed provocative content, such as images of police brutality, to people who identify as either liberals or conservatives. The pictures were followed by moderate or extreme statements from fictional peers. The researchers then asked participants to rate how much they agreed with the statements, and which peers they associated most closely with.

People preferred peers who shared their political opinions and tended to have more extreme views than their own.

The authors caution that these results are based on a computer simulation and not on real-world behaviour, but the findings hint at social behaviours that underpin political segregation.” [1]

1. Nature 612, 10 (2022)