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Diversity-induced resonance in the response to social norms

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  • Claudio J. Tessone
  • Angel Sanchez
  • Frank Schweitzer

Abstract

In this paper we focus on diversity-induced resonance, which was recently found in bistable, excitable and other physical systems. We study the appearance of this phenomenon in a purely economic model of cooperating and defecting agents. Agent's contribution to a public good is seen as a social norm. So defecting agents face a social pressure, which decreases if free-riding becomes widespread. In this model, diversity among agents naturally appears because of the different sensitivity towards the social norm. We study the evolution of cooperation as a response to the social norm (i) for the replicator dynamics, and (ii) for the logit dynamics by means of numerical simulations. Diversity-induced resonance is observed as a maximum in the response of agents to changes in the social norm as a function of the degree of heterogeneity in the population. We provide an analytical, mean-field approach for the logit dynamics and find very good agreement with the simulations. From a socio-economic perspective, our results show that, counter-intuitively, diversity in the individual sensitivity to social norms may result in a society that better follows such norms as a whole, even if part of the population is less prone to follow them.

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  • Claudio J. Tessone & Angel Sanchez & Frank Schweitzer, "undated". "Diversity-induced resonance in the response to social norms," Working Papers ETH-RC-12-017, ETH Zurich, Chair of Systems Design.
    • Handle: RePEc:stz:wpaper:eth-rc-12-017
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    1. Frank Schweitzer & Pavlin Mavrodiev & Claudio J. Tessone, 2013. "How Can Social Herding Enhance Cooperation?," Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 16(04n05), pages 1-22.
    2. Frank Schweitzer & Luca Verginer & Giacomo Vaccario, 2020. "Should The Government Reward Cooperation? Insights From An Agent-Based Model Of Wealth Redistribution," Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 23(07), pages 1-19, November.

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