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Social Norms and the Dominance of Low-Doers

Proietti, Carlo LU and Franco, Antonio LU (2018) In Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 21(1).
Abstract
Social norms play a fundamental role in holding groups together. The rationale behind most of them is to coordinate individual actions into a beneficial societal outcome. However, there are cases where pro-social behavior within a community seems, to the contrary, to cause inefficiencies and suboptimal collective outcomes. An explanation for this is that individuals in a society are of different types and their type determines the norm of fairness they adopt. Not all such norms are bound to be beneficial at the societal level. When individuals of different types meet a clash of norms can arise. This, in turn, can determine an advantage for the “wrong” type. We show this by a game-theoretic analysis in a very simple setting. To test this... (More)
Social norms play a fundamental role in holding groups together. The rationale behind most of them is to coordinate individual actions into a beneficial societal outcome. However, there are cases where pro-social behavior within a community seems, to the contrary, to cause inefficiencies and suboptimal collective outcomes. An explanation for this is that individuals in a society are of different types and their type determines the norm of fairness they adopt. Not all such norms are bound to be beneficial at the societal level. When individuals of different types meet a clash of norms can arise. This, in turn, can determine an advantage for the “wrong” type. We show this by a game-theoretic analysis in a very simple setting. To test this result - as well as its possible remedies - we also devise a specific simulation model. Our model is written in NETLOGO and is a first attempt to study our problem within an artificial environment that simulates the evolution of a society over time. (Less)
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author
and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Agent Based Modeling, Social Norms, Game Theory
in
Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation
volume
21
issue
1
article number
6
publisher
University of Surrey
external identifiers
  • scopus:85041796991
ISSN
1460-7425
DOI
10.18564/jasss.3524
project
Rationality and Group Behavior
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
The authors thank Prof. Erik J. Olsson and Dr. Jeroen Smid for many inputs and improvements of this paper. Work by Carlo Proietti was supported by the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (P16-0596:1).
id
e40340dd-266d-4430-bb75-09ebd8580a36
date added to LUP
2018-01-28 17:44:57
date last changed
2022-05-03 01:10:55
@article{e40340dd-266d-4430-bb75-09ebd8580a36,
  abstract     = {{Social norms play a fundamental role in holding groups together. The rationale behind most of them is to coordinate individual actions into a beneficial societal outcome. However, there are cases where pro-social behavior within a community seems, to the contrary, to cause inefficiencies and suboptimal collective outcomes. An explanation for this is that individuals in a society are of different types and their type determines the norm of fairness they adopt. Not all such norms are bound to be beneficial at the societal level. When individuals of different types meet a clash of norms can arise. This, in turn, can determine an advantage for the “wrong” type. We show this by a game-theoretic analysis in a very simple setting. To test this result - as well as its possible remedies - we also devise a specific simulation model. Our model is written in NETLOGO and is a first attempt to study our problem within an artificial environment that simulates the evolution of a society over time.}},
  author       = {{Proietti, Carlo and Franco, Antonio}},
  issn         = {{1460-7425}},
  keywords     = {{Agent Based Modeling; Social Norms; Game Theory}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{01}},
  number       = {{1}},
  publisher    = {{University of Surrey}},
  series       = {{Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation}},
  title        = {{Social Norms and the Dominance of Low-Doers}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.18564/jasss.3524}},
  doi          = {{10.18564/jasss.3524}},
  volume       = {{21}},
  year         = {{2018}},
}