A 2016 study published in PLOS ONE suggests that we decide which groups to join, in part, based on the physical traits of the people in existing clusters.
It's long been wondered whether folks aggregate more or less randomly, or if there are patterns of behavior that might indicate who will go where: a sort of law of social gravity that generally determines the shape these groups take and why they end up looking like they do.
Group-formation has been tricky to research, though, as it’s difficult to determine the exact moment a pair or trio of disconnected humans will latch onto each other, forming a more cohesive unit which is then capable of attracting others.
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