“Doing what others do” does not stabilize continuous norms

Abstract

Differences in social norms are a key source of behavioral variation among human populations. It is widely assumed that a vast range of behaviors, even deleterious ones, can persist as long as they are locally common because deviants suffer coordination failures and social sanctions. Previous models have confirmed this intuition, showing that different populations may exhibit different norms even if they face similar environmental pressures or are linked by migration. Crucially, these studies have modeled norms as having a few discrete variants. Many norms, however, have a continuous range of variants. Here we present a mathematical model of the evolutionary dynamics of continuously varying norms and show that when the social payoffs of the behavioral options vary continuously the pressure to do what others do does not result in multiple stable equilibria. Instead, factors such as environmental pressure, individual preferences, moral beliefs, and cognitive attractors determine the outcome even if their effects are weak, and absent such factors populations linked by migration converge to the same norm. The results suggest that the content of norms across human societies is less arbitrary or historically constrained than previously assumed. Instead, there is greater scope for norms to evolve towards optimal individual or group-level solutions. Our findings also suggest that cooperative norms such as those that increase contributions to public goods might require evolved moral preferences, and not just social sanctions on deviants, to be stable.

Weak content preferences stabilise culture

“…Acerbi et al (2021), for example, found that convergent transformation drives cultural dynamics when acting together with unbiased copying (and, similarly to here, the more faithful the copying is, the stronger the effect of convergent transformation). Morgan and Thompson (2020) found that even weak priors render conformity unable to stabilise traditions and determine the outcome, in most conditions for discrete choices, and always for continuous choices (these results are echoed in the more recent Yan, Mathew, and Boyd (2023)).…”

Structural analysis of Green Human Resource Management and Green Transformational Leadership on Environmental Behaviors and Green Innovation Performance with the Mediating Role of Environmental Knowledge

“…Employee EBs are known as behaviors exhibited by employees that contribute to reducing environmental harm or even bene ting the environment (Fatoki, 2019). Some researchers believe that EBs are somewhat unique and require individual interventions, and they are more prevalent in small segments of the population, such as those who evaluate the environment and possess environmental mindsets (Yan et al, 2023).…”