The peer trap

None of us ever see the “real world”, whatever that is. Our views are always distorted by our culture, our expectations, our experiences, and a myriad of other factors. One of these obscuring factors is the ”peer trap”.

Our view of the world is heavily influenced by our peers, the people around us which who we interact daily. But people tend to associate, marry, work with and live in the same neighborhoods as people much like themselves. So academics are usually surrounded by academics, religious people by other religious people, investment bankers by other investment bankers, poor people by other poor people, Hispanics by other Hispanics, and so on. This model doesn’t fit everyone, but it does fit the vast majority of the population.

The peer trap is our natural tendency to think that the whole world lives and thinks much as we do, because, certainly, most of the people around us live and think much as we do. And of course that is an error.

One of the unique strengths that America has is that, because of its immigrant roots, it encompasses a wide variety of outlooks and so there is more opportunity to become aware of differing and alternative views of the world. Our diversity is our strength. Some other nations are seriously hobbled by the homogeneity of their populations – it seriously narrows their thinking.

But in any case, those who would see the world more accurately need to work to actively avoid the peer trap, and be aware that whatever their own views, most of the world doesn’t share them.