二进制数
趋同(经济学)
投资(军事)
扩散
人口
计量经济学
计算机科学
社会心理学
微观经济学
经济
心理学
数学
物理
社会学
人口学
热力学
政治学
政治
法学
算术
经济增长
作者
Paulo Smith Schneider,Vincent Buskens,Arnout van de Rijt
出处
期刊:Advances in group processes
日期:2023-12-14
卷期号:: 91-113
标识
DOI:10.1108/s0882-614520230000040005
摘要
Diffusion studies investigate the propagation of behavior, attitudes, or beliefs across a networked population. Some behavior is binary, e.g., whether or not to install solar panels, while other behavior is continuous, e.g., wastefulness with plastic. Similarly, attitudes and beliefs often allow nuance, but can become practically binary in polarized environments. We argue that this property of behavior and attitudes – whether they are binary or continuous – should critically affect whether a population becomes homogenous in its adoption of that behavior. Models show that only continuous behavior converges across a network. Specifically, binary behavior allows local convergence, as multiple states can be local majorities. Continuous behavior becomes uniform across the network through a logic of communicating vessels. We present a model comparing the diffusion of both types of behavior and report on a laboratory experiment that tests it. In the model, actors have to distribute an investment over two options, while a majority receives information that points to the optimal option and a minority receives misguided information that points toward the other option. We predict that when adjacent persons receive misguided information this can hinder convergence toward optimal investment behavior in small networked groups, especially when subjects cannot split their investment, i.e., binary choice. Results falsify our theoretical predictions: Although investment decisions are significantly negatively affected by local majorities only in the binary condition, this difference with the continuous condition is not itself significant. Binary and continuous behavior therefore achieve comparable incidences of optimal investment in the experiment. The failure of the theoretical predictions appears due to a substantial level of error in decision-making, which prevents local majorities from locking in on a suboptimal behavior.
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