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Category: Data

Description: The public display of rainbow flags has become a prevalent practice in many urban areas to express solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community. What makes individuals take a public stand for the rights of sexual minorities beyond their private approval? This paper explores whether social influence among flat neighbors shapes the public display of rainbow flags on private windows and balconies by conducting an extensive field observation of 135,202 residents in the city of Bern in Switzerland. We compared the observed distribution of flag behaviour on façades and buildings with a simulated distribution that emulates independent actors. Our analysis reveals that flagged households are significantly closer to each other on the façades than would be expected from independent actors, providing evidence for social influence between close flat neighbors. Additionally, rainbow flags appear more frequently in buildings where other ideologically related flags are present, while no such association exists with Swiss national flags. Across the city, results indicate a surplus of buildings without any flags and buildings with an excessive number of flags. We argue that committed minorities can induce a self-reinforcing dynamic in which the risks of hanging a rainbow flag continuously decrease as the number of flag hangers in close proximity increase. This leads simultaneously to greater alignment of flag behavior within buildings and greater polarization between buildings.