IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nas/journl/v116y2019p12244-12249.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Humans adapt to social diversity over time

Author

Listed:
  • Miguel R. Ramos

    (Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX2 6AE, United Kingdom; Centro de Investigação e de Intervenção Social, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), 1649-026 Lisboa, Portugal)

  • Matthew R. Bennett

    (Department of Social Policy, Sociology and Criminology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, United Kingdom)

  • Douglas S. Massey

    (Office of Population Research, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544)

  • Miles Hewstone

    (Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX2 6AE, United Kingdom; School of Psychology, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia)

Abstract

Humans have evolved cognitive processes favoring homogeneity, stability, and structure. These processes are, however, incompatible with a socially diverse world, raising wide academic and political concern about the future of modern societies. With data comprising 22 y of religious diversity worldwide, we show across multiple surveys that humans are inclined to react negatively to threats to homogeneity (i.e., changes in diversity are associated with lower self-reported quality of life, explained by a decrease in trust in others) in the short term. However, these negative outcomes are compensated in the long term by the beneficial influence of intergroup contact, which alleviates initial negative influences. This research advances knowledge that can foster peaceful coexistence in a new era defined by globalization and a socially diverse future.

Suggested Citation

  • Miguel R. Ramos & Matthew R. Bennett & Douglas S. Massey & Miles Hewstone, 2019. "Humans adapt to social diversity over time," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 116(25), pages 12244-12249, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:nas:journl:v:116:y:2019:p:12244-12249
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.pnas.org/content/116/25/12244.full
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Verdiana Giannetti & Jieke Chen, 2023. "An investigation of the impact of Black male and female actors on US movies’ box-office across countries," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 269-291, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nas:journl:v:116:y:2019:p:12244-12249. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Eric Cain (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.pnas.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.