… As a political scientist, I’ve been asking people about their experiences with people who are different from them. In 2008, I wrote a series of questions to measure cosmopolitanism. I asked seven questions about travel, sports and food to tap into behaviors that expose people to varying levels of social and cultural differences. …
Who we are and how we see ourselves in the world — fundamental questions about our identity — relate to our political choices. This is nothing new. A willingness to come into contact with others may drive both travel and vote choice, but actually experiencing differences has been shown to have effects on behavior. CONT.
Lynn Vavreck (UCLA), New York Times