  Segregation is widespread in all realms of human society. Several influential
studies have argued that intolerance is not a prerequisite for a segregated
society, and that segregation can arise even when people generally prefer
diversity. We investigated this paradox experimentally, by letting groups of
high-school students play four different real-time interactive games.
Incentives for neighbor similarity produced segregation, but incentives for
neighbor dissimilarity and neighborhood diversity prevented it. The
participants continued to move while their game scores were below optimal, but
their individual moves did not consistently take them to the best alternative
position. These small differences between human and simulated agents produced
different segregation patterns than previously predicted, thus challenging
conclusions about segregation arising from these models.
