Cultural Diversity Broadens Social Networks
43 Pages Posted: 14 Jun 2019 Last revised: 12 Aug 2021
Date Written: August 11, 2021
Abstract
Migration and mobility increase the cultural diversity of a society. Does this diversity have consequences for how people interact and form social ties, even when they join a new community? We hypothesized that people from regions with greater cultural diversity would forge more diversified social ties in a newly formed community, connecting otherwise unconnected groups. In other words, that they would become social brokers. We tested this prediction by characterizing the social networks of eight Master of Business Administration cohorts (N=2,257). International students (N=773) from populations with greater present day ethnic diversity and a history of extensive cultural intermingling were more likely to become social brokers than international students from less diverse nations. American students’ (N = 1,461) brokerage scores were also positively related to their home counties’ indices of present-day international connectivity (calculated from aggregate Facebook data) and their counties’ ancestral diversity. The results of this study suggest that more culturally diverse social environments—defined here at multiple geographic and temporal scales—endow people with socially adaptable behaviors that help them connect broadly within new, heterogeneous communities.
Keywords: social networks, diversity, culture, social brokerage, socio-ecology
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