Tuesday, February 04, 2025

First Paragraph

 Throughout my years as a social psychologist, I have learned how important a sense of belonging can be. Today, many people who once took that feeling for granted seem unmoored and adrift. In the turbulent election season of 2016, my colleagues and I conducted a survey of law students at a selective university to determine who felt most alienated on campus. The two groups who felt least like they belonged were black women and politically conservative white men. These two groups seem to fall at the farthest poles of our political discourse. Yet they shared a feeling: They felt like outsiders. The defining feature of our era seems to be that few groups feel confident in their sense of belonging.

- From Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides by Geoffrey L. Cohen


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