scholarly journals Collective decision-making by rational agents with differing preferences

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (19) ◽  
pp. 10388-10396 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard P. Mann
Keyword(s):  
Private Information ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Social Feedback ◽  
Uncertain Environments ◽  
Individual Agent ◽  
Rational Agents ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Behavioral Rules ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual

Collective decisions can emerge from individual-level interactions between members of a group. These interactions are often seen as social feedback rules, whereby individuals copy the decisions they observe others making, creating a coherent group decision. The benefit of these behavioral rules to the individual agent can be understood as a transfer of information, whereby a focal individual learns about the world by gaining access to the information possessed by others. Previous studies have analyzed this exchange of information by assuming that all agents share common goals. While differences in information and differences in preferences have often been conflated, little is known about how differences between agents’ underlying preferences affect the use and efficacy of social information. In this paper, I develop a model of social information use by rational agents with differing preferences, and demonstrate that the resulting collective behavior is strongly dependent on the structure of preference sharing within the group, as well as the quality of information in the environment. In particular, I show that strong social responses are expected by individuals that are habituated to noisy, uncertain environments where private information about the world is relatively weak. Furthermore, by investigating heterogeneous group structures, I demonstrate a potential influence of cryptic minority subgroups that may illuminate the empirical link between personality and leadership.

scholarly journals Collective decision making by rational agents with differing preferences

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard P. Mann
Keyword(s):  
Private Information ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Social Feedback ◽  
Uncertain Environments ◽  
Individual Agent ◽  
Rational Agents ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The World ◽  
Common Goals ◽  
The Individual

Collective decisions can emerge from individual-level interactions between members of a group. These interactions are often seen as social feedback rules, whereby individuals copy the decisions they observe others making, creating a coherent group decision. The benefit of these behavioural rules to the individual agent can be understood as a transfer of information, whereby a focal individual learns about the world by gaining access to the information possessed by others. Previous studies have analysed this exchange of information by assuming that all agents share common goals. While differences in information and differences in preferences have often been conflated, little is known about how differences between agents’ underlying preferences affects the use and efficacy of social information. In this paper I develop a model of social information use by rational agents with differing preferences, and demonstrate that the resulting collective behaviour is strongly dependent on the structure of preference sharing within the group, as well as the quality of information in the environment. In particular, I show that strong social responses are expected by individuals that are habituated to noisy, uncertain environments where private information about the world is relatively weak. Furthermore, by investigating heterogeneous group structures I demonstrate a potential influence of cryptic minority subgroups that may illuminate the empirical link between personality and leadership.

The True Believers

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara J. Risman
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Gender Ideology ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Gender Differentiation ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Gendered Expectations

This is the first data chapter. In this chapter, respondents who are described as true believers in the gender structure, and essentialist gender differences are introduced and their interviews analyzed. They are true believers because, at the macro level, they believe in a gender ideology where women and men should be different and accept rules and requirements that enforce gender differentiation and even sex segregation in social life. In addition, at the interactional level, these Millennials report having been shaped by their parent’s traditional expectations and they similarly feel justified to impose gendered expectations on those in their own social networks. At the individual level, they have internalized masculinity or femininity, and embody it in how they present themselves to the world. They try hard to “do gender” traditionally.

scholarly journals System models for resilience in gerontology: application to the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Klasa ◽  
Stephanie Galaitsi ◽  
Andrew Wister ◽  
Igor Linkov
Keyword(s):  
The Elderly ◽  
System Level ◽  
Improve Quality ◽  
Care Needs ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Chronic Stressors ◽  
The World ◽  
Aging Adults ◽  
The Individual

AbstractThe care needs for aging adults are increasing burdens on health systems around the world. Efforts minimizing risk to improve quality of life and aging have proven moderately successful, but acute shocks and chronic stressors to an individual’s systemic physical and cognitive functions may accelerate their inevitable degradations. A framework for resilience to the challenges associated with aging is required to complement on-going risk reduction policies, programs and interventions. Studies measuring resilience among the elderly at the individual level have not produced a standard methodology. Moreover, resilience measurements need to incorporate external structural and system-level factors that determine the resources that adults can access while recovering from aging-related adversities. We use the National Academies of Science conceptualization of resilience for natural disasters to frame resilience for aging adults. This enables development of a generalized theory of resilience for different individual and structural contexts and populations, including a specific application to the COVID-19 pandemic.

scholarly journals Collective communication and behaviour in response to uncertain ‘Danger’ in network experiments

2020 ◽  
Vol 476 (2237) ◽  
pp. 20190685
Author(s):  
Hirokazu Shirado ◽  
Forrest W. Crawford ◽  
Nicholas A. Christakis
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Interpersonal Communication ◽  
Communication Networks ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Collective Communication ◽  
Group Topology ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Social Coordination ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Actual Accuracy

In emergencies, social coordination is especially challenging. People connected with each other may respond better or worse to an uncertain danger than isolated individuals. We performed experiments involving a novel scenario simulating an unpredictable situation faced by a group in which 2480 subjects in 108 groups had to both communicate information and decide whether to ‘evacuate’. We manipulated the permissible sorts of interpersonal communication and varied group topology and size. Compared to groups of isolated individuals, we find that communication networks suppress necessary evacuations because of the spontaneous and diffuse emergence of false reassurance; yet, communication networks also restrain unnecessary evacuations in situations without disasters. At the individual level, subjects have thresholds for responding to social information that are sensitive to the negativity, but not the actual accuracy, of the signals being transmitted. Social networks can function poorly as pathways for inconvenient truths that people would rather ignore.

scholarly journals The Memory of the National and the National as Memory

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 92-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Poblete
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Social Memory ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Centered Form ◽  
Derechos Humanos ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual

This essay seeks to illuminate a different, more encompassing kind of transition than that from dictatorship to post-dictatorship (and its attendant forms of memory of military brutal force and human rights abuses) often privileged by studies of political violence and social memory. The focus is twofold: first, to describe a transition from the world of the social to that of the post-social, i.e. a transition from a welfare state-centered form of the nation to its neoliberal competitive state counterpart; and secondly, to analyze its attendant memory dynamics. The double articulation of collective memory under neoliberalism, the deep and recurring violence it has involved at both the social and the individual level, and its self-articulation as a social memory apparatus are apparent in two Chilean films exploring the logic (Pablo Larraín’s Tony Manero) and the history (Patricio Guzmán’s Nostalgia de la luz) of the implementation of this neoliberal memory apparatus in Chile. Este trabajo intenta iluminar una transición más amplia que aquella entre dictadura y post-dictadura ( y sus correspondientes formas de memoria sobre la violencia militar o los abusos a los derechos humanos) que suele ser el objeto de estudio de los trabajos sobre violencia política y memoria social. Mi interés es doble: primero, describir una transición del mundo social al post-social (es decir, una transición desde una forma de estado-nación centrada en el estado de bienestar a su contraparte neoliberal y competitiva; y en segundo lugar, analizar sus correspondientes formas de memoria. La doble articulación de la memoria colectiva bajo el neoliberalismo, la profunda y recurrente violencia presente, tanto a nivel social como a nivel individual, y su autoarticulación como un aparato de la memoria social son evidentes en las dos películas chilenas Tony Manero de Pablo Larraín y Nostalgia de la luz de Patricio Guzmán que exploran la lógica y la historia de la implementación de este aparato de la memoria neoliberal en Chile.

scholarly journals The Normative Underpinnings of Population-Level Alcohol Use: An Individual-Level Simulation Model

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 224-234
Author(s):  
Charlotte Probst ◽  
Tuong Manh Vu ◽  
Joshua M. Epstein ◽  
Alexandra E. Nielsen ◽  
Charlotte Buckley ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alcohol Use ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
Drinking Behavior ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Drinking Patterns ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Behavioral Rules ◽  
Level Model ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact

Background. By defining what is “normal,” appropriate, expected, and unacceptable, social norms shape human behavior. However, the individual-level mechanisms through which social norms impact population-level trends in health-relevant behaviors are not well understood. Aims. To test the ability of social norms mechanisms to predict changes in population-level drinking patterns. Method. An individual-level model was developed to simulate dynamic normative mechanisms and behavioral rules underlying drinking behavior over time. The model encompassed descriptive and injunctive drinking norms and their impact on frequency and quantity of alcohol use. A microsynthesis initialized in 1979 was used as a demographically representative synthetic U.S. population. Three experiments were performed in order to test the modelled normative mechanisms. Results. Overall, the experiments showed limited influence of normative interventions on population-level alcohol use. An increase in the desire to drink led to the most meaningful changes in the population’s drinking behavior. The findings of the experiments underline the importance of autonomy, that is, the degree to which an individual is susceptible to normative influence. Conclusion. The model was able to predict theoretically plausible changes in drinking patterns at the population level through the impact of social mechanisms. Future applications of the model could be used to plan norms interventions pertaining to alcohol use as well as other health behaviors.

scholarly journals From Social Information to Social Norms: Evidence from Two Experiments on Donation Behaviour

Games ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timo Goeschl ◽  
Sara Kettner ◽  
Johannes Lohse ◽  
Christiane Schwieren
Keyword(s):  
Social Norm ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Dictator Game ◽  
Additional Treatment ◽  
Causal Mechanism ◽  
Student Sample ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Anchoring Effects ◽  
The Individual

While preferences for conformity are commonly seen as an important driver of pro-social behaviour, only a small set of previous studies has explicitly tested the behavioural mechanisms underlying this proposition. In this paper, we report on two interconnected experimental studies that jointly provide a more thorough and robust understanding of a causal mechanism that links social information (i.e., information about the generosity of others) to donations via changing the perception of a descriptive social norm. In a modified dictator game, Experiment 1 re-investigates this mechanism adding further robustness to prior results by eliciting choices from a non-student sample and by implementing an additional treatment that controls for potential anchoring effects implied by the methods used in previous investigations. Experiment 2 adds further robustness by investigating the link between social information, (descriptive) norm perception and giving at the individual, rather than the group average, level. We find that an exogenous variation of social information influences beliefs about others’ contributions (descriptive social norm) and, through this channel, actual giving. An exploratory analysis indicates that this causal relationship is differently pronounced among the two sexes. We rule out anchoring effects as a plausible confound in previous investigations. The key findings carry over to the individual level.

The Effects of Government System Fractionalization on Satisfaction With Democracy

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 593-611 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Christmann ◽  
Mariano Torcal
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Opposite Effect ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Satisfaction With Democracy ◽  
Institutional Determinants ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Comparative Study

Consensual-pluralistic institutional features of representative democracies have traditionally been associated with satisfaction with democracy (SWD). However, more recent studies report contradictory results on the effects of some of these institutional determinants on SWD. This article confirms these puzzling findings by showing that electoral proportionality increases SWD while other pluralistic factors such as government fractionalization produce the opposite effect. We illustrate this duality of counteracting effects by expanding the number of cases under study to different regions of the world in a comprehensive time-series cross-sectional sample of 58 democracies between 1990 and 2012. In the second part of the paper, we are able to reconfirm these findings at the individual level by employing survey data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems.

Correct Voting Across Thirty-Three Democracies: A Preliminary Analysis

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard R. Lau ◽  
Parina Patel ◽  
Dalia F. Fahmy ◽  
Robert R. Kaufman
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Factors ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Political Sophistication ◽  
Media Access ◽  
Emerging Democracies ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Political Experience ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Correct Voting

This article extends Lau and Redlawsk's notion ofcorrect voting– whether voters, under conditions of uncertainty, choose the alternative they would have chosen had they been fully informed about the issues and candidates in that election – to sixty-nine elections in thirty-three established and emerging democracies around the world. At the individual level, political sophistication, political experience and motivation all significantly predict the probability of casting a correct vote. However several institutional factors proved to be even more important. In particular, elections with more parties running – and settings that encourage candidate-centred voting – decrease the probability of correct voting, while more ideologically distinctive alternatives, clearer lines of responsibility and greater media access to information are associated with higher rates of correct voting.

The Role of Dialogue, Otherness and the Construction of Insight in Psychosis: Toward a Socio-Dialogic Model

2005 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Dolson
Keyword(s):  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Clinical Interview ◽  
Narrative Construction ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
The World ◽  
Clinical Phenomenon ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Individual

AbstractThe focus is on the intersubjective, narrative and dialogic aspects of the clinical phenomenon of insight in psychosis. By introducing a socio-dialogic model for the clinical production of insight, it can be learned how insight, as a form of self-knowledge (of a morbid alteration in one's relation to the world/others), is a product of the clinical interview, namely the dialogic relation between patient and clinical interviewer. Drawing upon the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, expressly his notion of the ethical encounter, the production of insight in the clinical interview is elucidated as both a synchronic and diachronic phenomenon—a provisional form of self-knowledge based on historically-produced frames of meaning which are recalled and narrated, i.e., produced at a specific moment in time. The production of insight, based on auto-biographical memory, is ultimately a processual and transactional phenomenon which arises out of the narrative construction of experience and the dialogic negotiation of the individual's "authored" experience. This process may be understood as a synergistic dynamic between intersubjective micro-processes (dialogue) and symbolic macro-processes (such as "culture"), which may, when crystallized at the individual level, precipitate a subjectively insightful account of the prodromal illness experience.

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