Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks.

Why this matters here

McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Cook’s Annual Review essay synthesizes evidence that social networks concentrate around similarity—homophily in demographic traits, attitudes, and experience—so contact, trust, and information travel more easily among people who already resemble one another. Trust Beyond Similarity treats that ordinary pattern as the starting condition of collaboration: shared vocabulary and familiar instincts feel like competence before anyone has tested whether difference could correct the work. The review establishes the network tendency; the book asks what trust must do once similarity stops being enough.