IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/compec/v18y2001i1p9-24.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Learning to Be Thoughtless: Social Norms and Individual Computation

Author

Listed:
  • Epstein, Joshua M

Abstract

This paper extends the literature on the evolution of norms with an agent-based model capturing a phenomenon that has been essentially ignored, namely that individual thought--or computing--is often inversely related to the strength of a social norm. Once a norm is entrenched, we conform thoughtlessly. In this model, agents learn how to behave (what norm to adopt), but--under a strategy I term Best Reply to Adaptive Sample Evidence--they also learn how much to think about how to behave. How much they are thinking affects how they behave, which--given how others behave--affects how much they think. In short, there is feedback between the social (inter-agent) and internal (intra-agent) dynamics. In addition, we generate the stylized facts regarding the spatio-temporal evolution of norms: local conformity, global diversity, and punctuated equilibria. Copyright 2001 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Suggested Citation

  • Epstein, Joshua M, 2001. "Learning to Be Thoughtless: Social Norms and Individual Computation," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 18(1), pages 9-24, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:compec:v:18:y:2001:i:1:p:9-24
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://journals.kluweronline.com/issn/0927-7099/contents
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Истратов В.А., 2016. "Моделирование Формирования Социальных Норм В Общественных Науках," Журнал Экономика и математические методы (ЭММ), Центральный Экономико-Математический Институт (ЦЭМИ), vol. 52(4), pages 47-73, октябрь.
    2. Efe Postalci, 2010. "Learning by observing," Working Papers 1007, Izmir University of Economics.
    3. Leigh Tesfatsion, 2002. "Agent-Based Computational Economics," Computational Economics 0203001, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 Aug 2002.
    4. Anderson, Kyle & Lee, SangHyun, 2016. "An empirically grounded model for simulating normative energy use feedback interventions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 272-282.
    5. Mary Burke & Gary Fournier, 2005. "The Emergence of Local Norms in Networks," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 299, Society for Computational Economics.
    6. Amy Peng & Francis McKenna, 2009. "Evolution of the Week," Working Papers 012, Ryerson University, Department of Economics.
    7. Yves Saillard, 2004. "L'analyse économique des normes : représentation et traitement des interactions dans les modèles de simulation," Post-Print halshs-00104866, HAL.
    8. Francesco C. Billari & Alexia Prskawetz & Johannes Fürnkranz, 2002. "The cultural evolution of age-at-marriage norms," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2002-018, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    9. Chen, Xiaodong & Lupi, Frank & An, Li & Sheely, Ryan & Viña, Andrés & Liu, Jianguo, 2012. "Agent-based modeling of the effects of social norms on enrollment in payments for ecosystem services," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 229(C), pages 16-24.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:compec:v:18:y:2001:i:1:p:9-24. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.