Solidarity, synchronization and the emergence of cooperation
Year: 2013
Type: preprint
Abstract: One of the big questions about social life is how people manage to cooperate for public goods. Current answers rely on individuals' relations and reputations, but have difficulty explaining the beginning, when relations are sparse and reputations largely unknown. Moreover, actual situations are often characterized by uncertainties about the value and timing of the public good, such that established relations and reputations may not suffice. As a run up to cooperation, people can increase their solidarity and establish (or relay their) social ties through interaction rituals, which is done by groups ranging from hunter-gatherers to social movements. Kuramoto's synchronization model is used to show that the network thereby formed should have sufficient algebraic connectivity to compensate for the differences between individuals' commitments and psychological states. At a critical level of solidarity, a majority's commitments and psychological states, respectively, synchronize in a phase transition, which yields a boost of motivation for a burst of collective action.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Author: Jeroen Bruggeman
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2203634152