The Great Illusion: Ignorance, Informational Cascades, and the Persistence of Unpopular Norms

Bicchieri, Cristina; Fukui, Yoshitaka

doi:10.1007/978-94-015-9191-1_5

Cited by 32 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Most importantly, in the weak cascade setting, we do not require every member of the population to follow the perceived majority preference, but allow them to take into account the size of the majority as compared to the strength of their private preferences. This is very different than previous cascade models such as Banerjee (1992), Bikhchandani et al (1992), and Bicchieri and Fukui (1999), which assume that every individual places very high weight on public opinion, and thus follows the majority. In such situations, it is not surprising that cascades occur, but the more realistic scenario (where many individuals do not place high weight on public opinion) has not been adequately explored.…”

Section: Our Modelcontrasting

confidence: 57%

“…Thus we present a model of cascade effects which builds on the prior work of Bicchieri and Fukui (1999), as well as much of the earlier work on informational and reputational cascades. As in other models of cascade effects, we examine a micromodel of the behavior of individual rational agents, and show that this leads to herd behavior in the aggregate.…”

Section: Our Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Next we examine the assumption that an individual's weight of public opinion q is constant, rather than varying with the number of observations N. Relaxing this assumption allows us to connect our model directly to the prior work of Bikhchandani et al (1992), a framework which is also used in the experiments of Anderson and Holt (1997) and is closely related to the models of Arthur (1989) and Bicchieri and Fukui (1999).…”

Section: Varying Weight Of Public Opinionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This occurs, for example, in the laboratory experiments of Anderson and Holt (1997), where each individual in turn must guess from which urn a ball has been drawn. Similarly, the reputational cascade model of Bicchieri and Fukui (1999) assumes that every individual wants to choose the action which is preferred by the majority, regardless of his own private preference. In each of these cases, an individual values his own information or preference no more than that of any other individual; thus the 'rational' decision is to follow the majority of observed decisions, counting the individual's private information as a single observed decision (Bikhchandani et al, 1992).…”

Section: Varying Weight Of Public Opinionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Cascade Effects in Heterogeneous Populations

Neill

2005

Rationality and Society

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We present a model of sequential choice which explains the emergence and persistence of unpopular, inefficient behavioral norms in society. We model individuals as naıve Bayesian norm followers, rational agents whose subjective expected utility is increased by adherence to an established norm. Agents use Bayesian reasoning to combine their private preferences and prior beliefs with empirical observations of others' decisions. When agents must infer the preferences of others from observation, this can result in negative cascades, causing the majority of agents to choose a dispreferred action (because they believe, incorrectly, that they are following the majority preference). We demonstrate that negative cascades can result even when the degree of conformity is relatively low, and under a wide range of conditions (including heterogeneity in preferences, priors, and impact of public opinion). This allows us to present a general model of how rational norm-following behavior can occur, and how unpopular norms might emerge, in real populations with heterogeneous preferences and beliefs.

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Section: Our Modelcontrasting

confidence: 57%

Section: Our Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Varying Weight Of Public Opinionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Varying Weight Of Public Opinionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Cascade Effects in Heterogeneous Populations

Neill

2005

Rationality and Society

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“…Surprisingly, they even become advocate of the norm due to potential embarrassment as a consequence of revealing their private thought to a group of people which they think, think otherwise. Some interesting examples quoted in the literature are foot binding [3], female genital mutilation [4], Johannes town massacre [5] and acceptability of corruption [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conditions Facilitating the Aversion of Unpopular Norms: An Agent-Based Simulation Study

Zareen¹,

Zafar²,

Zia³

2016

ijacsa

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Abstract-People mostly facilitate and manage their social lives adhering to the prevalent norms. There are some norms which are unpopular, yet people adhere to them. Ironically, people at individual level do not agree to these norms, but, they still follow and even facilitate them. Irrespective of the social and psychological reasons behind their persistence, sometimes, for societal good, it is necessary to oppose and possibly avert the unpopular norms. In this paper, we model theorydriven computational specifications of Emperor's Dilemma into an agent-based simulation, to understand the the conditions that result in emergence of unpopular norms. The reciprocal nature of persistence and aversion of norms, thus, is utilized to define situations under which these norms can be changed and averted. Simulation is performed under many interesting "what-if" questions. The simulation results reveal that under high density conditions of agent population with a high percentage of norm aversion activists, the aversion of unpopular norms can be achieved.

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Crowdsourced Corruption Reporting: What Petrified Forests, Street Music, Bath Towels, and the Taxman Can Tell Us About the Prospects for Its Future

Zinnbauer¹

2015

Policy &Amp; Internet

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This article maps the prospects of crowdsourcing technologies in the area of corruption reporting. Despite a flurry of initiatives and media hype in this area leading to hopes of an effective tackling of corruption, the potential of crowdsourcing has so far been mainly approached from a technologycentric perspective. Where challenges are identified and worked on they are primarily technical and managerial in nature, such as challenges of privacy protection, data management, information validation, and fundraising. However, little attention has been paid to insights from a growing body of multidisciplinary literature on how corruption works, how it can be tackled, and more generally how observed logics of collective action and social mobilization interact with technological affordances to condition the success of these efforts. Linking the technology-centric experience of crowdsourcing more closely to our evolving understanding of corruption makes it possible to move beyond common-sense conjectures in this area, to identify some little-discussed challenges, and develop some fresh ideas around the future of crowdsourcing corruption.

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The Great Illusion: Ignorance, Informational Cascades, and the Persistence of Unpopular Norms

Cited by 32 publications

References 15 publications

Cascade Effects in Heterogeneous Populations

Cascade Effects in Heterogeneous Populations

Conditions Facilitating the Aversion of Unpopular Norms: An Agent-Based Simulation Study

Crowdsourced Corruption Reporting: What Petrified Forests, Street Music, Bath Towels, and the Taxman Can Tell Us About the Prospects for Its Future

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