Growing Unpopular Norms

Abstract

Unpopular norms are a pervasive and puzzling phenomenon of the social world. They are norms that are established and maintained against the interest of their subjects, but without external coercion. Pluralistic ignorance has been suggested as a potential explanation of unpopular norms. What is currently lacking is a formal model of this process that can be meaningfully compared with empirically known properties of pluralistic ignorance. An agent-based model of a growing social network can reproduce the most significant qualitative features, viz a deviation of the perceived norm from the preference distribution and the dynamical lag of the former behind the latter. In addition, the model is extended with a central influence representing for example central media or a powerful political elite.

Social normative origins of the taboo gap and implications for adolescent risk for HIV infection in Zambia

“…Gender norms (social norms that specifically apply to people because of their gender) are generated and upheld through influences in families, communities, institutions, structures and policies, reflecting the patriarchal context in which they are situated ( Heise et al, 2019 ) ( Hay et al, 2019 ). People conform with collective norms even when they, individually, believe these norms to be harmful ( Merdes, 2017 ). Among the social forces that create, reinforce and socialise people into complying with norms, educational agencies play a key role.…”

Modeling opinion misperception and the emergence of silence in online social system

“…The belief, or private opinion, b i , which can assume one of two possible values, b i = ±1. As done in previous work (e.g., [ 34 , 35 , 42 ]), for simplicity we model agent’s belief as fixed in time. From a theoretical perspective, such a choice is justified by the fact that the primary focus of these models (and of the theories behind, e.g., [ 9 , 11 ]) is about explaining the process that leads individuals to publicly express opinions that do not align with their private beliefs, and not about changes in beliefs.…”

“…Yet, this crucial point requires still to be empirically tested. Finally, simulation work exploring biases in agents’ inference processes (e.g., inferring others’ beliefs through their observable behavior) provides support for the role of “endogenous” sources of misperception (i.e., that depend on agents’ internal decision making system) in driving the spread of unpopular norms in a system [ 42 ]. Models of this kind could also be applied to investigate how the voice of minorities can influence public discourses in systems characterized a potential disallignment between individuals’ expressed and private opinions.…”

Minding morality: ethical artificial societies for public policy modeling

“…There exist several article-length reviews of normative agent architectures (Luck et al 2013), normative multiagent systems (Mahmoud et al 2014), and simulation models of norms (Neumann 2012), as well as book-length analyses and reviews of the complexity of modeling norms (Xenitidou and Edmonds 2014; Elsenbroich and Gilbert 2014). Significant efforts have been made to simulate the emergence of norms (Savarimuthu et al 2008;Frantz et al 2014), mechanisms involved in norm compliance (Andrighetto and Conte 2012), the internalization or "immergence" of norms (Conte et al 2014), as well as the spread of different types of norms (Merdes 2017;Flache et al 2017).…”

“…Game-theory models are helpful when it comes to simulating the emergence of cooperation and the role that dynamics such as reputation management play in shaping norms (Corten 2014 ). Some scholars have even attempted a sort of “experimental ethics,” using game-theoretic approaches to test the adaptive role of (im)moral behaviors in various evolutionary contexts (Mascaro 2010 ).…”