Between Us, Within Us
Why do we change our behavior when walking into a room full of strangers? Why do some groups feel like home while others make us uneasy? I explore the invisible social mechanisms that shape how we act, feel, and identify in group settings by studying how social norms, group identities, and collective emotions interact, and how these interactions can either bridge or deepen divisions between people and groups.
Polarization lives both in individuals and in groups, and the real story lies in how these levels interact. By tracing these dynamics, this paper explores what polarization really is, how it spreads, and why it’s so hard to measure or reverse.
Groups shape how we see ourselves, how we behave, and how society functions, yet we still don’t fully understand how groups actually form or evolve. In this paper, I explore the fluid relationship between individuals and the groups they belong to, suggesting a more flexible way to think about group dynamics: not as fixed in-groups and out-groups, but as ever-changing affiliations that move along a continuum as our social world changes.
