Year: 2013
Type: preprint
Abstract: For people to act collectively in actual situations—in contrast to public goods experiments—goal ambiguity, diversity of interests, and uncertain costs and benefits stand in their way. Under such conditions, people seem to have few reasons to cooperate, yet the Arab revolu-tions, as conspicuous examples, show that collective action can take place despite the odds. I use the Kuramoto model to analyze how people in a cohesive network topology can synchronize their salient traits (emotions, interests or other), and show that synchronization happens in a phase transition, when group solidarity passes a critical threshold. This model can yield more precise predictions of outbursts of collective action under adverse conditions, and casts a new light on different measures of social cohesion. A remarkable feature of humans is that they can act collectively, even though individuals are tempted to defect and reap the benefits of others’ efforts [19]. This achievement is even more remarkable if one realizes that in contrast to public goods experiments of collective action, where the collec-tive good—money—is clearly defined at the outset, public goods in actual situations, from revolutions to reorganizations, are often ambiguous. Yet more challenging, participants differ in their interests in, and shares of, those public goods. Under conditions of ambiguity, uncertainty and diversity, most people seem to have few reasons to cooperate. Nevertheless we can witness that in numerous cases, people somehow manage to get to action in the face of all odds.
Author: Jeroen Bruggeman
Language: English
Subfield: Statistical and Nonlinear Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1770044335