Machine-arranged Interactions Improve Institutional Belonging and Cohesion

TL;DR

This study shows that machine-arranged meetings can enhance feelings of belonging and improve perceptions of diverse groups among participants in a social program.

Contribution

It introduces a data-driven approach demonstrating the positive impact of machine-arranged interactions on social cohesion and perceptions.

Findings

Participants in machine-arranged meetings had 4.5% higher belonging.

Participants showed 3.9% more positive perceptions of others.

Machine-arranged interactions can foster social cohesion.

Abstract

We investigated how participation in machine-arranged meetings were associated with feelings of institutional belonging and perceptions of demographic groups. We collected data from 535 individuals who participated in a program to meet new friends. Data consisted of surveys measuring demography, belonging, and perceptions of various demographic groups at the start and end of the program. Participants were partitioned into a control group who received zero introductions, and an intervention group who received multiple introductions. For each participant, we computed twelve features describing participation status, demography and the amount of program-facilitated exposure to others who were similar to them and different from them. We used a linear model to study the association of our features with the participants' final belonging and perceptions while controlling for their initial belonging and perceptions. We found that those who participated in the machine-arranged meetings had 4.5% higher belonging, and 3.9% more positive perception of others.