Van Assche Jasper, Ardaya Velarde Sofia, Van Hiel Alain, Roets Arne
Department of Developmental, Personality and Social Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Center for Social and Cultural Psychology (CESCUP), Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.
Front Psychol. 2023 Jan 16;13:1036646. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1036646. eCollection 2022.
A more nuanced understanding of the complex relationship between ethnic diversity and social cohesion is needed. Ever since Robert Putnam (2007) has put forward the highly contested constrict claim holding that diversity is related to less trust and more social withdrawing, hundreds of follow-up studies across the globe have been conducted. In the present contribution, we investigated the association between diversity and "hunkering down" in the Netherlands, hereby taking into account the role of segregation. Indeed, Uslaner (2012) pointed to local segregation as the true motor of the so-called diversity effects on intergroup relations in general, and trust in others in particular. We did not only investigate objective indicators of diversity and segregation, but also added an "eye of the beholder" perspective by probing into the subjective perceptions of these variables. Specifically, in a stratified community sample of 680 Dutch ethnic-cultural majority members (52% male, mean age 51), we assessed the additive and interactive effects of four variables (objective diversity, perceived diversity, objective segregation, and perceived segregation) at the municipal level in the prediction of three outcomes (generalized trust, ingroup trust, and outgroup trust). The results revealed three interesting patterns. First, neither of the objective indicators of diversity and segregation, nor their interaction effect significantly predicted any type of trust. Second, higher perceptions of diversity and higher perceptions of segregation were negatively associated with outgroup trust (but not with generalized and ingroup trust). Third, and most importantly, there was a significant interaction effect between perceived diversity and perceived segregation, indicating that simultaneous perceptions of high levels of diversity and high levels of segregation were related to the lowest levels of trust in other ethnic-cultural groups. These findings shed a more nuanced light on the diversity debate, showing that perceptions of segregation shape diversity effects. In sum, the present study shows that perceived rather than objective indicators of diversity and segregation matter, and that both diversity and segregation should be taken into account when it comes to social cohesion in general, and trust in particular.
我们需要对种族多样性与社会凝聚力之间的复杂关系有更细致入微的理解。自罗伯特·帕特南（2007年）提出极具争议的紧缩主张，即多样性与更少的信任和更多的社会退缩有关以来，全球范围内开展了数百项后续研究。在本论文中，我们研究了荷兰的多样性与“退缩”之间的关联，同时考虑了隔离的作用。的确，厄斯拉纳（2012年）指出，地方隔离是所谓的多样性对群体间关系，尤其是对他人信任产生影响的真正驱动力。我们不仅研究了多样性和隔离的客观指标，还通过探究这些变量的主观认知增加了“旁观者视角”。具体而言，在一个由680名荷兰族裔文化多数群体成员组成的分层社区样本中（男性占52%，平均年龄51岁），我们评估了四个变量（客观多样性、感知到的多样性、客观隔离和感知到的隔离）在市级层面上对三个结果（普遍信任、群体内信任和群体外信任）预测中的累加效应和交互效应。结果揭示了三个有趣的模式。首先，多样性和隔离的客观指标及其交互效应均未显著预测任何类型的信任。其次，对多样性的更高认知和对隔离的更高认知与群体外信任呈负相关（但与普遍信任和群体内信任无关）。第三，也是最重要的一点，感知到的多样性和感知到的隔离之间存在显著的交互效应，这表明同时感知到高水平的多样性和高水平的隔离与对其他族裔文化群体的最低信任水平相关。这些发现为多样性辩论提供了更细致入微的视角，表明对隔离的认知塑造了多样性效应。总之，本研究表明，多样性和隔离的感知指标而非客观指标才是重要的，并且在讨论社会凝聚力，尤其是信任问题时，应同时考虑多样性和隔离因素。
