Open-Minded Students Will Be Tomorrow’s Leaders

To the editors:

It was with great pleasure that I read your piece “Ethnic Groups Reach Beyond Blood Ties” (News, Mar. 21). That students are expressing interest—and are welcomed—in identity groups that are not (at first glance) their own, displays admirable open-mindedness, curiosity, and leadership. From my own personal experience, as a Radcliffe Mentor in the Radcliffe Mentorship Program (once an all-female endeavor), I have been thrilled to see male undergraduates lining up to be mentored by Radcliffe graduates. Indeed, Harvard extracurriculars are proof that students are willing to leap across boundaries.

Not particular to extracurriculars at Harvard, this phenomenon is a target of scientific research at the University, as well. I am presently part of a community of researchers (post-doctoral fellows and undergraduate thesis writers) at the Center for Public Leadership, part of the Kennedy School of Government. Under the leadership of Assistant Professor of Public Policy Todd L. Pittinsky, we conduct quantitative studies of intergroup “liking” in the laboratory and in the field. Our research on allophilia—a term derived from the Greek word meaning “liking,” or loving, of the other—seeks a scientific understanding of what makes some individuals identify and support groups that are not, by nature at least, their own. While scientists have become very sophisticated at understanding prejudice, its antonym is completely under-theorized. The students described in this article spur our work.

Research thus far identifies trust, socializing, admiration, kinship, and ability (believing members of other groups are intelligent and capable) as factors contributing to one’s “liking” another group. Today’s students who display allophilia are tomorrow’s world leaders who will take their love of other groups and pass it on.



LAURA M. BACON ‘02

Cambridge, Mass.

March 21, 2006

The writer is a research fellow at Kennedy School of Government.