We turn some strangers into family, and family is sacred.

Boarding school. I was fourteen and about to leave home for the first time. I remember standing among hundreds of others, all students waiting for a bus that would take us there. Strangers sharing the same district. But at that age, friendship starts simple, distance fades quickly, and forty minutes on a bus is all it takes to form a lasting bond.

Claiming the cubicle at the end of the dorm was just the beginning. Twelve girls, drawn together by a shared commute, embarked on a three-year adventure. We developed our own language, shared inside jokes, wrote our stories. We laughed hardest together. We found reasons why we were deserving while outsiders were not. We became our own standard.

Today I wonder: how much of our world is shaped by who we decide belongs? How much of who we are is shaped by a decision as simple as boarding a bus?

In-group bias is the automatic preference we show for people who belong to our groups. It operates below conscious awareness, shaping everything from hiring decisions to dinner invitations.

The mechanism is ancient. Our ancestors survived by distinguishing friend from foe. We inherit their quick judgments.

We don’t just favor our group members. We actively construct the boundaries that define who belongs. These circles shift with our context and our needs. A doctor might connect with colleagues at the hospital in the morning, then feel a sense of belonging with a running club in the evening. Different tribes, different loyalties.

We begin favoring our groups within minutes of assignment. Henri Tajfel's experiments found that arbitrary distinctions like coin tosses triggered immediate in-group favoritism. Blue team versus red team. The preference emerges before we know anything meaningful about the people involved.

We believe our groups are more diverse, more complex, more human than theirs. We see nuance in our people, patterns in theirs. Cross-cultural studies show this bias appears across different societies.

Neuroscience research reveals that group membership changes how our brains process faces, happening faster than conscious thought. The mechanism creates trust and belonging within our circles while fostering suspicion beyond them. We gain identity and lose empathy in the same breath.

What groups have you drawn circles around today? And who stands outside the line?

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Notice when you feel instant kinship with a stranger.

Groups give us belonging, identity, and the comfort of being understood. But the same instinct that helps us find our people also limits who else we see. Every automatic sort is a small loss. A perspective we don't consider. Once we understand our bias, we can consciously choose to widen the circle.

Looking back, I see how easily lines become walls. What if this week we step outside our circles? Notice those we might overlook. Let ourselves be curious. Who becomes invisible when you only see what you expect to see?

I'd love to hear what you discover.