一个人们不愿意承认的事实是，混合族裔社区其实并不像表面看起来那么“混合”。我意识到自己在学校的操场和其他几名中产阶级白人父母聊天，尽管在伦敦哈克尼区的这所学校，许多家长既非白人也非中产阶级。我们认识住在4号的白人夫妇，却很少接触2号的非洲家庭。这不是什么让我感到骄傲的事，但却是事实。
很多人害怕种族多元化会引出我们最丑陋的一面，其中最著名的是美国政治学家、《一个人打保龄》(Bowling Alone)作者罗伯特・普特南(Robert Putnam)，他在2006年发表了一篇有关美国种族多元性和社区信任度的研究论文。普特南向英国《金融时报》表示“种族多元化的效应比人们之前想象的还要差。问题不仅仅是我们不相信那些长得不像我们的人。在多元化的社区，我们连那些长得像自己的人都不相信”。
许多人会同意普特南的观点，但我们中很少有人问：究竟为什么种族与合作之间也许有联系。为什么种族单一的社区似乎更容易办事？哥伦比亚大学爱尔兰裔政治学家麦卡藤・汉弗莱斯(Macartan Humphreys)提供给我一系列的可能性。
首先，有一些解释是基于偏好的。可能“同种人”想要彼此帮助；或者就是喜欢相同的东西；再者就是即便他们不喜欢相同的东西，他们也喜欢彼此为了合作而合作。第二类解释表明“同种人”合作更有效，因为他们彼此更加了解，或者可以排斥逃避者。
至此，这个问题还是难以解释。但是汉弗莱斯和新书《Coethnicity》的三名合著者近年在进行一系列雄心勃勃的博弈论实验——不是在精英的常青藤心理实验室，而是在乌干达首都坎帕拉的一个地段，那里有许多不同部落的成员。游戏的设计宗旨是区分上述解释，有些是行为经济学文献中的传统内容，另一些则是新的。（我最热衷的游戏是“锁箱”。首先，一位测试者接受打开密码锁的训练，此项技术在乌干达并不常见。按照游戏规则，一位受过训练的测试者要与一名未受训的人搭档，在10分钟内开锁，而受训的那位不可亲自动手。）
测试结果非常有趣。有充分证据显示，相同种族的人合作更有效（可惜锁箱游戏除外），但没有证据表明，他们的偏好与其他种族不同，或者他们对与其他种族合作怀有厌恶情绪。
最引人注目的结果出自“独裁者”游戏。游戏的一位玩家决定是否协助他人，而这些人无法以奖励或报复的方式回应。让人震惊的是：在一局匿名的独裁者游戏中，人们对待自己部落成员的方式，似乎和他们对待其他部落成员的方式一模一样。只有当研究人员揭开匿名的面纱时，人们的行为才会改变；他们在对待同种族人时显得更加慷慨。
同种族人之间相互合作，部分原因似乎是那是他们期待彼此要做的——就像英国人期待各自在马路的左边驾驶——他们知道不合作将招致的不愉快后果。
在坎帕拉成立的理论，不一定在伦敦（或者耶路撒冷）也成立。但此项研究鼓舞人心。它似乎表明：如果我们感到与外表和我们不同的人做生意很困难，这不一定是因为我们不喜欢他们，而可能只是因为我们不是很明白如何开始。
It is a truth grudgingly acknowledged that mixed ethnic communities are not as mixed as they appear. In the school playground I find myself talking to the other white middle-class mums and dads, in spite of the fact that in a Hackney school there are plenty of parents who are neither. We know the white couple at number four but have had little contact with the African family at number two. It's not something I am proud of, but there it is.
Many people fear that ethnic diversity can bring out the worst in us. Most famous is the American political scientist Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone, who in 2006 published a study of ethnic diversity and community trust in the US. He told the Financial Times that “the effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it's not just that we don't trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don't trust people who do look like us.”
But while many people will agree with Putnam, few of us ask precisely why ethnicity and co-operation might be connected. Macartan Humphreys, an Irish political scientist at Columbia University, offered me a list of possibilities as to why we seem to get things done more easily in homogenous communities.
First, there are explanations based on preferences. Perhaps “coethnics” want to help each other; or simply like the same things; or perhaps, even if they don't like the same things, they like working together for its own sake. A second group of explanations suggests that “coethnics” work together more effectively because they understand each other better or can ostracise shirkers.
So far, so imponderable. But Humphreys and three co-authors of a new book, Coethnicity, have been conducting an ambitious series of game theory experiments, not in the psychology labs of the Ivy League but in a neighbourhood of Uganda's capital, Kampala, which is home to members of many different tribes. The games were designed to distinguish between these explanations. Some are staples of the literature in behavioural economics, others are new. (My favourite is “Lockbox”. First, one subject was trained to open a combination lock, which is an unfamiliar technology in Uganda. The game paired a trained subject with an untrained one and gave the pair 10 minutes to get the lock open without the trained player touching it.)
The results are fascinating. There was good evidence that people from the same ethnic group worked together more effectively (although not at Lockbox, alas) but no evidence that their preferences differed from other ethnic groups or that they harboured any distaste for working with them.
The most striking result came from “dictator” games, in which a player decides whether to assist others who have no way of responding with either reward or revenge. And here's the remarkable thing: in an anonymous dictator game, people seem to treat those of their own tribe in exactly the same way that they treat people of other tribes. It was only when the researchers lifted the veil of anonymity that people's behaviour changed and they treated coethnics more generously.
Coethnics, it seems, co-operate in part because that is what they have come to expect from each other – just as the British expect each other to drive on the left – and they are aware of the unpleasant consequences if they do otherwise.
What is true in Kampala may not be true in Hackney – or Jerusalem. But the research is encouraging. It suggests that if we struggle to do business with people who look different, that may not be because we dislike them, but because we simply don't know quite how to begin.
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