Uncovering how inequality emerges from human interaction is imperative for just societies. Here we show that the way social groups interact in face-to-face situations can enable the emergence of degree inequality. We present a mechanism that integrates group mixing dynamics with individual preferences, which reproduces group degree inequality found in six empirical data sets of face-to-face interactions. We uncover the impact of group-size imbalance on degree inequality, revealing a critical minority group size that changes social gatherings qualitatively. If the minority group is larger than this 'critical mass' size, it can be a well-connected, cohesive group; if it is smaller, minority cohesion widens degree inequality. Finally, we expose the under-representation of social groups in degree rankings due to mixing dynamics and propose a way to reduce such biases.

翻译：从人类互动中发现不平等是如何产生的,对于公正的社会来说是绝对必要的。在这里,我们展示了社会群体在面对面情况下互动的方式可以导致程度不平等的出现。我们展示了一种机制,将群体与个人偏好混合在一起,这在6套面对面互动的经验数据组中复制了群体程度不平等。我们揭示了群体规模不平衡对程度不平等的影响,揭示了从质量上改变社会集会的关键少数群体规模。如果少数群体大于这一“临界质量”规模,那么它可能是一个联系良好、具有凝聚力的群体;如果它较小,少数群体的凝聚力会扩大程度不平等。最后,我们暴露了社会团体在程度等级上的不足,因为这种差异是混合的,我们提出了减少这种偏差的方法。