segregation

[zhul4nder]

Why do people do it?

I understand that it's much a learned tidbit of human nature...
As they say, monkey see monkey do..

But even so, children through my observations segregate even though they are not taught. From an early age as I remember, kids separate into these groups groups such as

athletes
Boys
Girls
rich kids
Poor kids

After these groups are made, hostility between these groups.

From an evolutionary stand point it doesn't make sense to hate their own race.
Why have we developed to hate each other, to eliminate competition?

Are we that selfish?

[Relambrien]

Re: segregation

The answer is simple: people like to be with others like them. That's why you get little groups and cliques like the jocks, the popular kids, etc. That's also the (main) reason racial segregation occurred, and still does. If you look to any American public school, you'll find that at lunch, people of the same race tend to sit together: blacks with blacks, whites with whites, etc. It doesn't mean any of them are racist; people are just innately more comfortable with others like them.

In general, between two people who are exactly the same except in race, people will be more comfortable with the person who is the same race as they are. Once again, that isn't racist; racism would be actively choosing to avoid those of another race because you consider them inferior.

[zhul4nder]

Re: segregation

Then are you only considering coloration of skin?
What about skill level? I also observe that smart people associate with other smart people.
Is that a comfort thing?

I know many siblings that refuse to hang around each other also...They are closer related than anyone else in the school.

And are you also forgetting Victor? The Wolf Boy?

Raised by wolves, he was horribly upset in the care of his human parents and much rather had lived outdoors, naked.

[Relambrien]

Re: segregation

I used race as an example because it's so well-known. You'll see that I also mentioned cliques that form, such as the jocks, the nerds, etc., once again because they're more comfortable with people like them.

As for siblings, just because you're related by blood doesn't mean you're anything like each other. My brothers and I are totally different from each other, for example.

As for Victor the Wolf Boy, because he was raised by wolves, he ended up being more like the wolves than other humans, so he was much more comfortable with them.

Segregation is almost entirely an issue of comfort, not just racial, but the formation of cliques and groups like the ones you stated.

[zhul4nder]

Re: segregation

In your post before this, you said that comfort was innate.
Now is it learned or biological?

[Tokzic]

Re: segregation

It's definitely not a product of circumstance, if that's what you're getting at. Consider that we choose our friends based on similarity, whether it's interests, fashion, profession, etc. Also, most people pick a majority of friends of their sex - does that make them sexist?

It is affected by situation, though. Given the fact that we have members of our species absolutely everywhere, we can pick very specific people to befriend. If you were one of six people on the planet, you'd probably stick with the other six people no matter what

Taking race into account, how we can solve that is finding another intelligent species. That way we can be speciesist instead of racist, because race won't seem like much variation in comparison.

[Relambrien]

Re: segregation

In your post before this, you said that comfort was innate.
Now is it learned or biological?

I'm no expert, but I'm willing to say biological (in terms of comfort with similar people). That's what "innate" means, after all: automatic, underlying.

Probably stemming from the original "strength in numbers" urge many animals, and more than likely early humans, felt. This would've been an advantageous urge because humans are actually quite weak compared to many other animals, and can't withstand temperature changes very well. The ones that felt an urge to be in groups would survive; those that didn't would die. Natural selection at work.

[NFD]

Re: segregation

Heh, I get segregated all the time, just because I'm a furry. People just segregate people that aren't like them. If you're in High School, look at lunch. People don't just sit with random people. They sit with their friends, who are usually like them. I know in my cafeteria, we have an AJA (Anime Junkies Anonomyous) that sits near all the lunch lines, and nobody bothers them.

[Kilroy_x]

Re: segregation

From an evolutionary stand point it doesn't make sense to hate their own race.

Yes it does, to an extent. There are any number of conceivable explanations for why

Why have we developed to hate each other, to eliminate competition?

This is one. It is somewhat problematic though, the only way to truly eliminate competition (ostensibly for reproduction) is to kill the competition. However this strategy is rarely biologically sound. So instead, species have generally developed to compete for certain things through symbolic conquests.

Are we that selfish?

Generally not, reciprocal altruism has a tendency to trump true blue sociopathic forms of competition elimination. Or to put it another way, we often and readily engage in behavior which is unselfish because we have an innate understanding that other people are also capable of that behavior, and we on some level expect a return. A lack of return will generally only lead to a stop of this behavior towards the individual in question, which is one of many reasons why "selfishness" is more often than not an unsound strategy.


Human beings are animals, and as a result they have many faculties in common with animals including the social ones. I am not really trained in evolutionary psychology, so all I can say is that certain social patterns are exhibited either because they have been evolutionary successful, or because they have not been sufficiently evolutionarily detrimental to cause their elimination.