A new study shows people of different genders, religions and nationalities tend to share many attitudes and values.
Researchers at the University of Bath gave questionnaires to over 140,000 people from more than 60 countries. They asked them about everything from immigration to inequality. They found that despite most respondents believing that they were very different from people in other social groups, most human beings have very similar moral codes.
Men and women (the only two genders recorded) agreed 95 percent of the time. People of different religions shared similar responses to each other 91 percent of the time. And while those of different nationalities were the most dissimilar, they were still in tune with each other a full 80 percent of the time.
That could be seen as good news at a time when much of what we see and hear around us suggests we’re becoming more and more divided. If, deep down, we mostly agree on what we want our lives (and our economies) to look like, then it’s easier to craft a society (and economy) that the majority of people are happy with.
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