Social Contagion theory

[Dominique R. Poirier]

Nat,
There is something that disturbs me in all this and I explain why.

The fact that a number X of persons chose the wrong way because they tend to rely in priority to what they see, and not to what they have been told cannot be summed up in a unifying branch of science or theory we would name “information cascade.”

In other words, I perceive it as a deductive fallacy.

Game theory doesn’t apply to your problem since there is no game in that case. If the first person takes the wrong way, then it doesn’t change the value of the winning prize, according to the rules you set up. While persisting, with a bit of humor, on using the game theory terminology one might say that this case is a “multi-player unlimited-sum non-game.”

Also, another missing element in that problem to make it a case relevant to game theory at some point is the notion that “win” implies “loss” for others. Actors involved in that case scenario may win or lose, individually and it doesn’t entail further consequences for the others. In this sense, and in supposing that we would like to find solutions through hard sciences such as logics or mathematics, then we might find them in theory of gambling or statistical logic. For, when the person 3 chooses to rely on what he witnessed instead of what he learned or was told before, then he is just gambling!

I justify my point.

Consider for a while that the person 3 is a “player” I’ll name P3, and that the precedent actions of the players 1 and 2 may be assimilated to “events” I’ll name E1, E2, and En if ever we were eventually considering the case of the persons 4, 12, 97, or more.
Equally I temporarily consider that the cues the player 3 has been provided with constitute an event too since notions of space, time, and history may apply the same way (he has been told or learned this information somewhere, sometimes). So I’ll name this last event E0. The sole difference between E0 and the events E1, E2 and En is a formal difference. The former is a told event of uncertain value while the latter constitute seen events of equal uncertain value.

In all cases, E1 and E2 may be considered as randomly generated events since there is no clear cut indication that these previous events constitute in themselves reliable sources of information, indeed.
If P3 chooses to rely on E1 and E2, then he relies on assumptions since E1 and E2 constitute informations discrepant to E0. In other words, he is gambling; and his choice to take the left (wrong) way because, at least, he witnessed E1, demonstrates that he acted in compliance with the bandwagon effect theory or with human tendency toward mimetic. If mimetic or bandwagon effect apply to our problem, then we must turn to other fields we name crowd behavior or mass psychology or even consumer behavior, all fields that provide satisfactory answers to our question. And since there is a probability for that P3 may chose to rely on P0 and to take the right way then statistical logic applies too as it applies to consumer behavior.

Since E1 and E2 constitute sources of information whose value are similar to this of E0, then P3 is confronted to the same situation in which a consumer is; as in the frame of another discipline called marketing and communication.
From the standpoint of this other discipline I do not name science the greater the number of occurrence for a given message A (A meaning En since it may encompass E1, E2, and more) the greater the odds that P3 (or Pn, if ever the case arises) will chose A instead of B (B meaning N0, or Nn if the case arises). This fact is no mere theory since applied marketing and communication prove it on a daily basis.

I see another way to tackle this problem which will consist in turning upside down the situation so as to make it relevant to the realm of game theory. In that case, E1, E2, and En would be summed up under the form of a mere message sent by a notional player we would name X; and, equally, EO would be a message sent by a second player we would name Y. The stake would be the number of persons successfully convinced (and so “won”) by each of these two players.

Well, I could go on with other examples, possibly. But all we would learn from it is that there is no way to find solutions through the use of a new discipline we would name “information cascade” since such terminology would pretend to take precedence over already well known other fields which provide satisfying and verifiable explanations.

Unless I missed something at some point, that’s the way I see it, Nat.

Regards,

[Dominique R. Poirier]

Nat,
There is something that disturbs me in all this and I explain why.

The fact that a number X of persons chose the wrong way because they tend to rely in priority to what they see, and not to what they have been told cannot be summed up in a unifying branch of science or theory we would name “information cascade.”

In other words, I perceive it as a deductive fallacy.

Game theory doesn’t apply to your problem since there is no game in that case. If the first person takes the wrong way, then it doesn’t change the value of the winning prize, according to the rules you set up. While persisting, with a bit of humor, on using the game theory terminology one might say that this case is a “multi-player unlimited-sum non-game.”

Also, another missing element in that problem to make it a case relevant to game theory at some point is the notion that “win” implies “loss” for others. Actors involved in that case scenario may win or lose, individually and it doesn’t entail further consequences for the others. In this sense, and in supposing that we would like to find solutions through hard sciences such as logics or mathematics, then we might find them in theory of gambling or statistical logic. For, when the person 3 chooses to rely on what he witnessed instead of what he learned or was told before, then he is just gambling!

I justify my point.

Consider for a while that the person 3 is a “player” I’ll name P3, and that the precedent actions of the players 1 and 2 may be assimilated to “events” I’ll name E1, E2, and En if ever we were eventually considering the case of the persons 4, 12, 97, or more.
Equally I temporarily consider that the cues the player 3 has been provided with constitute an event too since notions of space, time, and history may apply the same way (he has been told or learned this information somewhere, sometimes). So I’ll name this last event E0. The sole difference between E0 and the events E1, E2 and En is a formal difference. The former is a told event of uncertain value while the latter constitute seen events of equal uncertain value.

In all cases, E1 and E2 may be considered as randomly generated events since there is no clear cut indication that these previous events constitute in themselves reliable sources of information, indeed.
If P3 chooses to rely on E1 and E2, then he relies on assumptions since E1 and E2 constitute informations discrepant to E0. In other words, he is gambling; and his choice to take the left (wrong) way because, at least, he witnessed E1, demonstrates that he acted in compliance with the bandwagon effect theory or with human tendency toward mimetic. If mimetic or bandwagon effect apply to our problem, then we must turn to other fields we name crowd behavior or mass psychology or even consumer behavior, all fields that provide satisfactory answers to our question. And since there is a probability for that P3 may chose to rely on P0 and to take the right way then statistical logic applies too as it applies to consumer behavior.

Since E1 and E2 constitute sources of information whose value are similar to this of E0, then P3 is confronted to the same situation in which a consumer is; as in the frame of another discipline called marketing and communication.
From the standpoint of this other discipline I do not name science the greater the number of occurrence for a given message A (A meaning En since it may encompass E1, E2, and more) the greater the odds that P3 (or Pn, if ever the case arises) will chose A instead of B (B meaning N0, or Nn if the case arises). This fact is no mere theory since applied marketing and communication prove it on a daily basis.

I see another way to tackle this problem which will consist in turning upside down the situation so as to make it relevant to the realm of game theory. In that case, E1, E2, and En would be summed up under the form of a mere message sent by a notional player we would name X; and, equally, EO would be a message sent by a second player we would name Y. The stake would be the number of persons successfully convinced (and so “won”) by each of these two players.

Well, I could go on with other examples, possibly. But all we would learn from it is that there is no way to find solutions through the use of a new discipline we would name “information cascade” since such terminology would pretend to take precedence over already well known other fields which provide satisfying and verifiable explanations.

Unless I missed something at some point, that’s the way I see it, Nat.

Regards,

Nat,
I forgot to say one thing. In the discipline of communication, well identified behavioral patterns tell us that P3 is more likely to choose the left way (the wrong one) because:

-he will be more receptive to the call of the latest message (so E1 and E2);
-the message carried by E1 is repeated (E1 + E2) and so it has the advantage of repetition over the message E0;
-and the bandwagon effect add to the two former.

[Nat Wilcox]

A couple of observations.

In the formal theory of games, there is no inherent restriction of the payoff functions (or goals, or values) of the players to be in strict conflict (e.g. if I win you lose). What constitutes a game from the perspective of the general theory is much less restrictive than that. There can be identity of interests; there can be a mixture of conflict and identity; and there need be no relationship at all of interests or values per se. But the formal theory of information cascades does not stand or fall on what class of theory we say it belongs to. Call it an inference situation if you like.

It's not right for me to waste space here laying out the theory in all its formal detail...it looks like showing off, I think, and other people have done so in publicly available places. Here, for instance, is a very accessible description:

http://faculty.wm.edu/lrande/links/cascade_handbook.pdf

Now, to the central matter. Does the theory of an information cascade depend on assumptions about the behavior of the individual actors in its sequence? Of course it does. Does it depend on the assumptions that the individual actors make about one another? Yes, of course. Broadly speaking, the relevant assumptions are (i) reasonableness (the actors make roughly correct probabilistic inferences); (ii) decisiveness (the actors choose without error on the basis of their inferences); and (iii) common knowledge of (i) and (ii), that is that the actors believe that (i) and (ii) are true of everyone involved in the sequential interaction (this is very necessary).

Are there other bodies of theory about similar phenomena that deny one or more of these assumptions? Yes, of course. But, denying any of those assumptions is also an assumption. Since these are assumptions about individual cognition and beliefs--not the kind of thing we can inspect by checking tatoos on people's forheads--in what sense is it helpful to point out that one theory depends on assumptions that are difficult to verify? That is true of any theory that is about cognition and/or beliefs.

I personally think that it is a pretty sterile exercise to argue a priori about whether people are in general reasonable or believe that each other are so, and hence pretty pointless to try to rule in or out any bodies of theory on that basis. From the practical viewpoint of this community of applied science, different theoretical viewpoints will prove to be the best descriptive ones in different situations--I have no doubt of this. Only fools would not avail themselves of every theoretical framework (that is empirically supported) they can get their hands on. So if (say) Marct has an anthropological perspective on herd behavior that is "nonreasonable," I welcome this and hope everyone here does.

The other thing here is that, as a matter of strategy in cognitive sciences, one needs reasonable benchmarks in order to understand what is descriptively going on--to classify failures of reason--in order to diagnose difficulties and suggest remedies, or to exercise control in a way that helps matters as opposed to making them worse. If a theory of mimetic behavior is NOT based on reason, then how does it deviate from one that does? If we don't know the answer to that, then it is difficult to say what individuals ought to do that they are not now doing, or indeed what we think a "good" state of affairs would be, socially speaking. And without that, it is hard to think about policy or intervention in a reasonable way.

What I am meaning to say, is that (to use a word I highly dislike, because it is freighted with all kinds of bad associations) rational models are, even if not descriptive of what actually occurs, necessary benchmarks for understanding nonrational ones and then specifying policy or intervention. In this respect, I think it is vey counterproductive to try to rank-order rational and nonrational approaches to human cognition and social behavior. They are both necessary and they work hand-in-hand.

David Marr, one of my cognitive sciences hero, once said "trying to understand perception by only looking at neurons is like trying to understand flight by only looking at feathers. It just can't be done. To understand flight, one has to understand something of aerodynamics. Only then do the shapes of wings and feathers begin to make some sense..." You can think of the theory of aerodynamics as "the rational model of flight." It helps someone who studies real birds in two ways: It helps the observer sympathetically view the design of wings and feathers as solutions to the problem of flight, but at the same time it helps that observer classify failures in those designs. Marr was a specialist on the artificial intelligence of vision. For him, for instance, you need a formal mathematical model of stereopsis in order to understand the information-processing problem (and the solutions our visual systems use) of constructing 3-d representations from angular disparity of 2-d images (that our two eyes get). Then you can appreciate not only what algorithms might do the job, but you can also compare the ways in which those different algorithms occasionally fail to do the job, to what humans actually report when they look at things.

Finally, I think that another way of appreciating models based on "reasonableness" (a term I like much better than "rationality") is that it is a formal way of practicing the anthropologists' principle of sympathy or charity, in which the observing social scientist tries to understand how actors' behavior is reasonable or sensible from their own viewpoint (I would be interested in what the anthro folks here think about this...it is an idea I have had for awhile but I do not claim it is original or that it is clearly correct). Is it the only way? Surely not; but it is one way. Can we always achieve a full rational reconstruction? No, surely not; but trying helps us see (what could be) the method in other people's madness. If we are contemplating interventions into individual behavior or social processes, it is helpful to know that as a precaution: We don't want to inadvertently make things worse from actors' own subjective perspectives of what they are doing and why they are doing it. So it is helpful to know what sense and reason there might be in what they are doing. Does that make some sense?

[Nat Wilcox]

do remember that those of us who are experimental economists, like myself, create situations for study in the lab that precisely match the specific instantiation of a theory that we wish to study except of course that the actors are real humans and not the idealized reasonable agents of the theory.

So for instance, we could create a situation where the "truth" is "nonstationary" in which case reasonable solutions to the problem would involve putting greater weight on more recent observations.

What is "correct" of course depends on the true underlying stochastic processes that govern the true state and generate private signals. But that is simply to say that one can create various versions of the inference situation specified in the information cascade story, not that the specific story is deductively flawed. It would be deductively flawed if it didn't follow logically from its own assumptions--but it does. Put in different assumptions about the underlying stochastic process governing the truth and/or the generation of private signals, and the same Bayesian reasoning will produce different recommendations about decisions--possibly not resulting in the phenomenon we call an information cascade. But that doesn't "disprove the information cascade story." It merely means that under different assumptions about the underlying processes, cascades shouldn't occur. And that becomes a useful observation for testing the theory in a laboratory (for obvious reasons).

[Dominique R. Poirier]

Nat,
Once more, regretfully, there is something in your way of tackling the matter at hand, which, for the record, shifted to information cascade.

Actually, what worries me is that you seem to be quick at challenging or questioning many research’s tools and approaches that countless renowned scientist have largely put to the test; successfully put to the test.

I willingly agree that the general and fast paced evolution of science sometimes obliges us to reconsider certain approaches or even certain branches of science in their entirety. Some wonder, as striking example, whether our conception of mathematics fits the study of origin of the universe; what we use to call the “Big Bang,” in other words. The reputed physicist Stephen Hawking attempted to envisage a reversibility of time in an attempt to model his theory of the "Big Crunch."

So long, so good.

But, in my own opinion, it would be unwise to deduce from the aforesaid example and numerous others that we should be ready to challenge any of our landmarks each time we attempt to arrive at a solution. Stephen Hawking attempted to challenge only one of those landmarks; no more. He did it because he was probing into a hypothesis that might allow us to know whether the universe will be in endless expansion or not and to investigate the problem of the “missing matter.” And he just failed! Time is not reversible, and purely rational consideration helped him and us to understand why.

I hope this example will help you understand how your answer surprises me.
I may subscribe to your efforts to demonstrate the possible validity or interest of a new approach to tackle a specific problem. They are laudable, if not courageous. But your readiness at challenging or questioning any previous scientific approach that crosses the path of your will cannot but disturbs me at some point.

For the record, the theory of game of strategy may be described as a mathematical theory of decision making by participants in a competitive environment. In a typical problem to which the theory is applicable, each participant can bring some influence to bear upon the outcome of a certain event; no single participant by himself nor chance alone can determine the outcome completely. The theory is then concerned with the problem of choosing an optimal course of action which takes into account the possible actions of the participants and the chance events.

In my previous attempt to rationalize or abstract your problem of information cascade, I could reduce thing to a dilemma in which "P3" (i.e. the person 3) could set up a matrix payoff in an attempt to find the right solution. But since the way you introduce things says that P3 doesn’t know that he might be eaten by a bear, then there is no significant threat factor in all this to make it a game likely to solve other similar problems.

Like most branches of mathematics, game theory has its roots in certain problems abstracted from life situations. The situations are those which involve the necessity of making decisions when the outcomes will be affected by two or more decision-makers. Typically the decision-makers’ preferences are not in agreement with each other. In short, game theory deals with decisions in conflict situations.

A key word in what I have just said is abstracted. It implies that only the essential aspects of a situation are discussed in game theory rather than the entire situation with its peculiarities, ambiguities, and subtleties.
If, however, the game theoretician is asked “What are the essential aspects of decision in conflict situations?” his only honest answer can be “Those which I have abstracted.”
To claim more would be similar to maintaining that the essential aspect of all circular objects, or example, is their circularity.

As example justifying my concern you question no less than the whole field of game theory when you begin your answer by:

“In the formal theory of games, there is no inherent restriction of the payoff functions (or goals, or values) of the players to be in strict conflict (e.g. if I win you lose). What constitutes a game from the perspective of the general theory is much less restrictive than that. There can be identity of interests; there can be a mixture of conflict and identity; and there need be no relationship at all of interests or values per se.”

In other words, my critics are that if you do not abstract the payoff functions and attempt instead to introduce notions such as "identity of interests", or "mixture of conflict and interest " in a matrix payoff, then I forecast great difficulties in your endeavor to help others in the frame of such questions.

What I am saying prevails in game theory on a general basis, but, as I previously explained it, game theory will hardly applies to your example of information cascade as long as you do not introduce the presence of at least two notional players who send messages.

While quitting the subject of game theory you say then:

“Are there other bodies of theory about similar phenomena that deny one or more of these assumptions? Yes, of course. But, denying any of those assumptions is also an assumption. Since these are assumptions about individual cognition and beliefs--not the kind of thing we can inspect by checking tatoos on people's forheads--in what sense is it helpful to point out that one theory depends on assumptions that are difficult to verify? That is true of any theory that is about cognition and/or beliefs.

I personally think that it is a pretty sterile exercise to argue a priori about whether people are in general reasonable or believe that each other are so, and hence pretty pointless to try to rule in or out any bodies of theory on that basis. From the practical viewpoint of this community of applied science, different theoretical viewpoints will prove to be the best descriptive ones in different situations--I have no doubt of this. Only fools would not avail themselves of every theoretical framework (that is empirically supported) they can get their hands on. So if (say) Marct has an anthropological perspective on herd behavior that is "nonreasonable," I welcome this and hope everyone here does.”

From these two paragraphs on, you leave the object of our reflection to engage into considerations relevant to epistemology, this in order, seemingly, to make tabula rasa of any scientific landmarks we might use in the frame of your concern: information cascade. Thus your speech evolves distinctly toward philosophy until the end of your answer.

In the end you simply besiege rationality.

“Finally, I think that another way of appreciating models based on "reasonableness" (a term I like much better than "rationality") is that it is a formal way of practicing the anthropologists' principle of sympathy or charity, in which the observing social scientist tries to understand how actors' behavior is reasonable or sensible from their own viewpoint (I would be interested in what the anthro folks here think about this...it is an idea I have had for awhile but I do not claim it is original or that it is clearly correct). Is it the only way? Surely not; but it is one way. Can we always achieve a full rational reconstruction? No, surely not; but trying helps us see (what could be) the method in other people's madness. If we are contemplating interventions into individual behavior or social processes, it is helpful to know that as a precaution: We don't want to inadvertently make things worse from actors' own subjective perspectives of what they are doing and why they are doing it. So it is helpful to know what sense and reason there might be in what they are doing. Does that make some sense?”

Nat, how in the hell do you want to scientifically and rationally solution a problem and thus help others in their endeavors, if, instead, you drive them toward doubt? It just happens that several scientific and other disciplines provide satisfactory answers to your problem of information cascade, as I demonstrated it in my previous comment. Thus we obtained the answer we were expecting or, at least, we knew which branches and specialties were likely to solve this kind of problem.

With regards to your education, works, and proessional experience, as scientist your role is to provide answers; not questions…

[Nat Wilcox]

where in any of my posts have I been "challenging or questioning any previous scientific approach that crosses [my] path?" I think you are reading something into my posts that isn't there. My main point is to contribute to this discussion by pointing out the existence of an alternative body of theory that seems to apply to behavior under consideration here. That body of theory emphasizes inferences about others' information, revealed by their decisions, as a source of herding and mimetic behavior. The simplest of the stories does only that. Fancying up the story to cover other phenomena is simple to do; but that is not the point of relating the simplest version.

Not all games are matrix games; some are sequential games, best represented as decision trees. Your implicit idea that all games must be simultaneous move (matrix) games in which "both players send messages" is simply incorrect.

And there was no place in my original discussion of the sequential decision situation where I didn't imagine that person 3 (and indeed all persons in the situation) has a goal. All have a decision to make; decisions implicitly imply the presence of goals, or payoff functions in the language of games. In the case we have in this situation, the specific simple one that produces the cascade, the goals are common and independent. But, that is a simplifying assumption for the purpose of making the logic of information inference from decisions simple and clear: If you look at some of the literature I linked, there are fancier versions of the same story with interdependent payoffs, and then experiments that test those.

Dominique, I would have no trouble at all writing the basic story out as an extensive form (tree structure, rather than matrix structure) game, with everyone's (common and independent and so boringly simple) goals mathematically specified (as payoff functions), their strategy sets written down (again very simple--choose X or Y) and all of the Bayesian reasoning laid out. But to what purpose? Parading my expertise at this sort of thing? Instead, I have chosen to link sources.

But let's get down to brass tacks, rather than talking about quantum mechanics and information-processing. I linked a paper in my last post that summarizes a number of experiments that test the sequential Bayesian reasoning, from observed decisions of past actors who have private information, that lies behind both the simplest version of the situation--the one that produces the classical cascade phenomenon--as well as many other situations. Some of that evidence supports the basic sequential Bayesian reasoning story of the theory; but not perfectly of course. It gets some basic patterns in the data right, but there are some oddities that don't fit. In this respect, I have been very open about the evidential base here.

You say that I am challenging some other theory (I don't think so...) but if you would care to link to the body of evidence that supports the theories you say I am challenging, then I would be delighted to look at it. When I say evidence, I do not mean using theory to "post-dict", that is to explain what has already occurred; I mean when it is used to predict what will happen in a new situation, and that new situation is actually created for the purpose of checking the predictions. So for instance, I view using any social science theory to explain historical patterns as nice and suggestive, but it is not a test. It is just too easy to come up with theories that post-dict; this is something that is very clear to me. What is impressive about theory is when it makes new predictions for a situation we have not yet seen, and then we create that situation, and the theory gets the basic patterns of observations right--and especially better than alternative theories. You say you have "demonstrated" that some other theories explain the phenomena better, but in my book a demonstration involves citing some body of evidence of the sort I have just described (and cited myself).

Finally, Dominique, you say that "as scientist your role is to provide answers; not questions…" You are welcome to your own ideas about the role of scientists. But they are your ideas. I stand by the following assertions:

1. I provided this community with a description of a theoretical perspective on herding that emphasizes the role of inference of private information from actions. That in no way denigrates the contributions of other theoretical perspectives. Nothing I have said here can sensibly be construed as doing so.

2. I provided links where readers could go to see the formal theory itself...at least people capable of looking at bibliographies. I did that in lieu of laying out the theory here, which, I believed, would be off-putting to the vast majority of the members of this community. Instead, I opted to tell the gist of it in simple terms. At any rate, I provided the theoretical answers.

3. I provided links to the evidential basis in support of that theory. It shows both successes and failures of the theory. In this sense, I provided answers--and I might add very honest ones.

4. Anyone here who is in doubt of my ability to formally analyze a game, or my knowledge of games, can check my website, e.g. for instance:

http://www.class.uh.edu/econ/faculty...ilcox_2006.pdf

http://www.class.uh.edu/econ/faculty...nferred_RW.pdf

5. Having spent a lifetime doing experiments about decisions, learning and beliefs in social situations, I have to comment that anyone who believes that honest empirical inquiry doesn't regular throw up as many questions as it answers hasn't spent a lifetime doing experiments about humans (or for that matter animal) behavior. Honest empiricists honestly state those questions and problems. If Dominique or anyone else here knows of any theory (about human or animal behavior) that is perfectly supported by all rigorous evidence of the sort I described above, I'll eat my hat.

[Rob Thornton]

In the Small Group today during a discussion of leadership, the question arose of why is it that some populations do not devolve into the type of contagious violence we discussed on this thread during times of great social stress? We had the value of some diverse educational backgrounds amongst the group who brought up some of the studies that had explored how social cultural norms are altered through environmental erosion such as the Lucifer Effect.

I thought of this thread we started and wanted to come back to it to see what some of our council members thought about social disintegration.

We also discussed how the presence of towering leader during periods where violence might be seen as means to an end, or as something akin to justice, was able to capture the will of the affected people and lead them to a more peaceful solution or benign redress. The question of what it took to compel a population through reasoning, respect and personal example where the environment laid out conditions that in the absence of leadership should have led to violence seems to be important to understanding social collapse. Also interesting was what formed those leaders and provided them the stature to lead a population that might otherwise have unraveled?

Thoughts?

Regards, Rob

[goesh]

What popped into my mind was the situation of the Japanese in America being put in camps during WW2. Talk about grounds for being upset and resisting, but they went quite passively for the most part. Would a linear, monotheistic cultural backdrop have produced resistance and even violence in response to the internment as opposed to their Shinto/Buddhist type circular origins? I don't know but it is a distinctive variable yet contrast it with Martin Luther King and Ghandi, both men of God, one essentially linear and the other essentially ciruclar and nothing is clear cut. The spiritual and magical can't be factored out, that's for sure. I've often pondered 1st contact situtations in remote regions where some have been killed, others not and again the linear and circular variables come to mind. I lean more away from the leadership aspects. Many Indians were quite receptive to Christian Missionaries in the very early frontier days because they wore a cross, symbol of the 4 seasons and 4 directions, which was important in their religion(s).

[Steve Blair]

Actually I don't think there was much fuss when the British interred Germans in Word War I or Italians at the start of World War II. In many cases I think society and socialization plays a major role.

[Tom OC]

Rob, I'd love to talk about social contagion theory. I'm worried you might be getting a misunderstanding of it from that Netherlands site (good link, BTW, I bookmarked it) which seems to be some version from the field of communications studies. I also have no idea what the social intelligence connection is, unless, of course, one borrows from social network theory or small group theory. Instead, the version I'm most familiar with comes from the field of sociological criminology, a route one can trace from LeBon to Tarde to Durkheim to Phillips, and some cites on the latter show the criminological connection:
Phillips, D.P. (1980) Airplane accidents, murder, and the mass media: Towards a theory of imitation and suggestion. Social Forces 58, 4: 1000-1024.
Phillips, D.P. (1983) The impact of mass media violence on U.S. homicides. American Sociological Review, 48 (Aug): 560-568.
Ideas in this area have evolved from mob psychology (LeBon) to imitation (Tarde) to sociogenic currents (Durkheim) to homogeneity (Phillips). Press a symbolic interactionist, and they'll tell you it's about "the flux of situated identities" (Simmel being the sociological godfather of this, but more along the lines of how rumors, hoaxes, and lies spread). Press a structural-functionalist, and they'll tell you it's about "emergent norms" (which by definition don't exist since all norms must have emerged already). Of course, anyone trained in sociology would be familiar with Durkheim's famous theory of anomie (things change too fast) vs. fatalism (things never change) vs. altrusim (people do for others) vs. egotism (people do for self), and the sociogenic currents are those things (interpenetrating values) which float between and around those four polar endpoints, leaving patterns of expectations (norms) about conformity in their wake. Hence, people suffering from anomie occasionally get hit with a spell of fatalism; and people suffering from egotism occasionally get hit with a spell of altruism, etc. The social systems theorist, Parsons, picked up on this best of all, but it was Tarde (Durkheim's whipping boy during 19th century debates) who offered the more useful concept of "budget" (what we know as equilibrium or carrying capacity).
Homogeneity and closeness (propinquity) are factors which constrain budgets in terms of how many different values a society can tolerate, and to be sure, we are mainly talking about destructive or deviant values here (the concern of most criminologists). In criminology, much of this thinking is known as the question of how much crime can a society tolerate. To say that some crime is imitative or copycat misses the point about how social contagion is at the heart of the whole process. Hope this helps.

[slapout9]

Hi Rob, The case of the college students becoming guards was a popular topic when I was in college in 1976. It is pretty much a total fraud. They picked college students and told them to "act" like correctional officers. They did not go through any type of employment screening process like would have happened in the real world nor did they go through any type of academy and a probationary period which would have happened in the real world.

However their is study that was published in military review on how to spot psychopathic behavior. If I can find it I will post the link.

Here it is.http://calldp.leavenworth.army.mil/e...CUR_DOCUMENT=2

[goesh]

Another thought that came to mind was the situation on the upper plains of the US during the Great Depression and the foreclosures of family farms. This was very serious because there were no viable means of sustanence for these farm families - no welfare, no commodoties, no food stamps, no jobs etc. Two tactics were employed to combat this with no readily identified leadership behind the actions:
1.) When sale time arrived, farmers would show up and not allow anyone else in except farmers, who would then buy equipment and livestock at bid for mere pennies and return them to the original owners.
or
2.) Several famers would bring mares in heat and 3-4-5 other farmers would bring stallions to the sale. When massive draught horse stallions get to fighting over mares in heat and going after them, people and objects are going to get hurt and the sale would be totally disrupted.

This tactics seemed to crop up out of nowhere and rapidly spread so one could say there were 'cell leaders' but no leaders of prominence.

Were these acts of violence? Not to me but to others, yes. I think the viability of the paradigm of contagion V leaders is best served when violence is defined in harsh terms.

[marct]

There's been a debate in history for a long time over social forces vs. "Great Men" that may be applicable here. Goesh's points about emerging social protests certainly illustrate that, in some instances, people self organize and "through up" "leaders".

In other cases, "leaders" seem to exacerbate social problems while providing a "solution" (TomOC, I'm thinking of the Social Constructionist literature here, e.g. Joel Best, Specter and Kisuse, Darwin Bromley, etc.). Probably the best (no pun intended) article in this strand of thought is

Best, Joel (1987) Rhetoric in Claims-Making: Constructing the Missing Children Problem, in Social Problems 34(2), 101-121

Most of the reason I really like this article is that it provides a simple, yet surprisingly useful, way of analyzing the mechanisms of the spread of an idea / perception.

Marc

[Tom OC]

The social constructivist paradigm is weak because it fails to give any obdurate (how I've longed to use that word in some forum) status to norms and roles. And forgive me if I'm stomping all over someone's favorite paradigm here, but people like Joel Best see norms as always emerging and roles as constantly entered and exited. They see society as always in flux, a fiction if you will, that only exists in peoples' minds. Hence, contagion for them is only useful as a concept which explains consequences of action, not as a concept which helps understand the causes of action. It's almost as if interactionists are trapped in studying second-order and third-order interactions. Take the typical interactionist approach to what defines a social problem; i.e., the five stages of deviatization:

1. defining (some problem as deviant)
2. prospecting (for some scientific fact)
3. claims-making (over who "owns" the problem)
4. turf-battling (over who gets to solve the problem)
5. designating (the solution in law or ritual)

Social constructivists hardly ever get past a discussion of stage three. I've taken an interest lately in extending these stages to what constitutes the securitization process from an international relations standpoint, and have found the constructivist paradigm lacking in that area too. It seems what the whole rhetoric of fear crowd is missing is what attribution psychologists call "veridicality" or what Walter Stephan (2000). "Intergroup relations" pp. 333-336 in A. Kazdin (ed.) Encyclopedia of psychology. Washington DC: APA calls "realism" as in realistic threat assessment. This constitutes the role of leaders to realistically characterize the threat and not cater to symbolic overtones. Interactionists firmly believe symbolic communication is more powerful than realistic communication, and that is both their virtue and vice. Long ago in criminology, the non-Marxist conflict theorist, Austin Turk, tried to point that out to them, and another criminologist, Leslie Wilkins, tried to quantify that social contagion of the symbolic type only moves the mean of deviance one standard deviation away instead of two as a realistic portrayal might do. Applying this to leadership, I would imagine that bad leaders manipulate the symbolism in sinister ways, and good leaders are more capable of realistic risk portrayal as in the way risk communication is supposed to be done in homeland security. In sum, contagion is an energy source for the causes of action. It can be managed, sure, but I think it has to be treated as a structural phenomenon if we are ever to understand its true nature. Thanks for letting me share.

[marct]

Hi Tom,

The social constructivist paradigm is weak because it fails to give any obdurate (how I've longed to use that word in some forum) status to norms and roles. And forgive me if I'm stomping all over someone's favorite paradigm here, but people like Joel Best see norms as always emerging and roles as constantly entered and exited. They see society as always in flux, a fiction if you will, that only exists in peoples' minds. Hence, contagion for them is only useful as a concept which explains consequences of action, not as a concept which helps understand the causes of action.

I think you are misreading social constructionist theory here, mainly by conflating it with symbolic interactionism and social constructivism (BTW, its not my favourite paradigm at all, I just find it a simple and useful tool ). A couple of points that are worth bringing out here.

Norms: The first point I'd like to make about norms is that they are a statistical construct based on a frequency distribution of a given norm amongst a population (the Parsonian version of the older concept of "mores and folkways". They are not a thing in itself but, rather, a frequency characteristic of a population. Since their originating source is individual members of the population, the frequency distribution of any given norm will fluctuate as members of that population change their perceptions and ways of doing things. Giving an obdurate status (love that word too ) to a norm is the analogic equivalent of measuring solar radiation at one point in time and saying that it is the constant.

Roles: Social roles are similar to social norms in that they are also population level frequency distributions that are subject to change based upon changes in the social structure, organizational structures and/or environmental variables.

Obdurate status of rules and norms: certain types of roles and norms are more persistent than others, and some could be classified as obdurate. In particular, these would be the norms and role expectations (not the roles themselves) that have direct ties to the biological reality of humanity. The examination of this type of roles and norms is what led E.O. Wilson to start thinking about, and formulating, sociobiology in the earl 1970's. For a much better, and more modern and enlightened view, take a look at Jerome H. Barkow, 2001 Universalien und Evolutionäre Psychologie. In Universalien und Konstruktivismus, pp. 126-138. Peter M . Hejl, Hg. Universalien und Konstruktivismus. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag (English language version here).

On the question of causation, I really think you are wrong. The concept of contagion is used extensively by some of the constructionists as a way to understand social action. Take a look at The Satanism Scare (Best, Richardson and Bromley, 1991: Google books Amazon) for an example of this, especially the chapters in part 3.

It seems what the whole rhetoric of fear crowd is missing is what attribution psychologists call "veridicality" or what Walter Stephan (2000). "Intergroup relations" pp. 333-336 in A. Kazdin (ed.) Encyclopedia of psychology. Washington DC: APA calls "realism" as in realistic threat assessment. This constitutes the role of leaders to realistically characterize the threat and not cater to symbolic overtones. Interactionists firmly believe symbolic communication is more powerful than realistic communication, and that is both their virtue and vice.

Tom, I think you are totally misreading the assumption about symbolic communications: constructionists assume that all communications are "symbolic". If by "realistic" you mean an objectively valid, 1:1 mapping of language and reality, then they would reject this as totally naive and unsupported in philosophy, biology or linguistics, and I would agree with that position. If by "realistic" you mean using words and producing analyses in what Kuhn termed a "normal science" manner, they would certainly agree that it exists, but they would note that it is a limited "map" of "objective reality" - it's why the constructionists spend so much time analyzing the operational definitions in social rhetoric.

In sum, contagion is an energy source for the causes of action. It can be managed, sure, but I think it has to be treated as a structural phenomenon if we are ever to understand its true nature. Thanks for letting me share.

Now who's reifying ! I certainly agree that you can't really understand contagion without analyzing the social and communicative structures. I will point out that there are methodological problems in doing so; specifically if you treat contagion as an "energy source", how do you measure it? Most of the major attempts I'm aware of go back in one way or another to Korzybski's General Semantics and, specifically, his concept of semantic indexicality. But this puts you firmly back into an examination of the bio-physiological roots of thought which, if we want to update the scientific basis of Korzybski, means that we end up examining cognitive schemes.

Now, personally, I'm fine with that - I've been doing it for quite a while now.

You know Tom, I suspect that this entire conversation would do better over beers .

Marc

[Tom OC]

I may have been a little harsh on symbolic interactionism and social constructionism. I have to admit I'm unfamiliar with this latest trend in many fields called constructivism. Indeed, I have probably conflated them. I'm sympathetic to the argument that the more obdurate social phenomena (norms, roles, rites and rituals) are closely tied, symbolically, to the biological realm, but I would argue, as Durkheim did, that certain sociological phenomena can be causes too. Call it "collective conscience" or what-have-you, but as Skorupski (1976) explains in Symbol and Theory, NY: Cambridge Univ. Press, the real referent of ritual beliefs is the social order and so-called psychological processes like egotism and altruism are really social contagion processes essential and functional for that social order. Society develops in reaction to these processes when even more obdurate values and morals develop, and these things tend to persist long after the social circles which comprised them no longer exist. Hence, I have to defend my saying that social contagion is a cause, and a very deep, root cause at that. It has nothing to do with semantics, interpretation, or deconstruction. I appreciate that some social constructionists try to analyze statuses and especially master statuses that come around during satanist scares and the like, but it's always impressed me as pretty shallow research designed for the sake of showing the consequences of something like usually the powerful exerting their influence or demonstrating some better sociological imagination or creating typologies like the famous "villains, heroes, and fools" typology of radical criminology (e.g., Quinney). Sociobiology is much more promising. At least there is a brain to conjecture about there. I sometimes wonder if all these safeguards we put in place to avoid reductionism as well as reification are really worthwhile. When I see a central concept like social contagion, I'm reminded of all the missed opportunities for grand theory. Hope I didn't come off as intolerant of all the side roads I know we must take. And yes, I think these kinds of conversations go better with beer, or good scotch.

[marct]

Hi Tom,

And yes, I think these kinds of conversations go better with beer, or good scotch.

Ah, a man after my own heart .

I'm sympathetic to the argument that the more obdurate social phenomena (norms, roles, rites and rituals) are closely tied, symbolically, to the biological realm, but I would argue, as Durkheim did, that certain sociological phenomena can be causes too. Call it "collective conscience" or what-have-you, but as Skorupski (1976) explains in Symbol and Theory, NY: Cambridge Univ. Press, the real referent of ritual beliefs is the social order and so-called psychological processes like egotism and altruism are really social contagion processes essential and functional for that social order.

Oh, I wouldn't disagree with you that social phenomena can act in a causal manner - It's one of the reasons I used to teach my Intro to Anthropology students Durkheim's Rules of the Sociological Method. Still and all, I find Durkheim's and Skorpuski's views of religion and ritual to be somewhat less than complete; more of a Newtonian special case than a proper unifying theory. Then again, I've spent a long time studying ritual and symbolism in the Victor Turner line of thought, along with the experimental lines of thought that come out of Charlie Laughlin's work. In pact, my Ph.D. dissertation was a reworking of Victor Turners Rites of Passage model updated in a broadly Malinowskian functionalist model, but going from brain neurology to macrosocial levels (I threaten my sudents every now and again with making them read the theory section )

Society develops in reaction to these processes when even more obdurate values and morals develop, and these things tend to persist long after the social circles which comprised them no longer exist. Hence, I have to defend my saying that social contagion is a cause, and a very deep, root cause at that. It has nothing to do with semantics, interpretation, or deconstruction.

We may be using different models of causality here. I would argue that social contagion is a process, rather than content - a feedback loop that can act as if it is a cause. As a process, I would agree that here is nothing "semantic" about it. However, I would also argue that, also as a property of it being a process, it is divorced from its content which is primarily about semantics. It doesn't matter if we call that content "idions", "memes" or "norms", they are all about how people should perceive and comprehend those perceptions.

Sociobiology is much more promising. At least there is a brain to conjecture about there. I sometimes wonder if all these safeguards we put in place to avoid reductionism as well as reification are really worthwhile. When I see a central concept like social contagion, I'm reminded of all the missed opportunities for grand theory. Hope I didn't come off as intolerant of all the side roads I know we must take.

I think that sociobiology has pretty much been subsumed into evolutionary psychology and cognitive evolutionary cognitive neuropsychology - a move I fully endorse . For me, the truly nice thing about this move is that we actually no longer have to engage in conjecture about brain operations - we can see and map a fair number of them; at least as long as we can get our subjects to hold still in an MRI machine .

Just to give you an example of where I think this can lead, for the past 4 years I have been researching the interlinking of music, teaching and organizational culture in a choir I sing with. While I still can't get MRIs on the singers, I have been watching comprehensions shift within the group and new attitudes/perceptions being formed. It's quite the phenomenon, and I will probably start publishing about it after this year (there are some crucial changes going on). What is most apparent is how these new perceptions are being linked into both skills and phenomenal experiences, and how that is being constructed into a (far from complete) whole.

Marc

[sgmgrumpy]

Behavior patterns are of interest for two purposes. First, they offer insight into the other factors. Second, when aligned with intent, there is a high correlation tofuture behaviors. But behavior patterns are not a direct influence on future behaviors in the same sense that attitudes, perceptions or even cognitive style are direct influences.

Ugh

http://www.au.af.mil/bia/graphics/ad...av_origins.pdf

“Analyze to Understand; Assess to Influence”


http://www.au.af.mil/bia/index.htm

[marct]

Ugh

Welcome to my world ! Although I do have to say that they have a lt of really pretty pictures .

Honestly, this is a simplified sales pitch.

Marc

[goesh]

Heady stuff to say the least but in "going from brain neurology to macrosocial levels" don't we for all practical purposes cross into the realms of magic which only ritual enactment itself can explain and justify? It seems we start down a long road of trying to understand with endless conceptual processing, definition, redefinition, point and counter point and the nightmares of quantifying, statistically categorizing, issues of contamination through obesrvation and interaction with groups that rely heavily on magic and ritual justification. In trying to lay bare the realm of magic, we are hindered from being able to exploit it to full advantage. We ourselves can bring no ju-jus to the process, which may well be required to successfully work with 3rd worlders and tribal peoples. Indeed, imagine doing some incantation prior to defending one's thesis before the committee or purifying the room with sweetgrass and sage before answering their first question. I call it theoretical compression in the absence of the magical.