Strategic Influence: The Diffusion of Prosocial and Antisocial Behaviors

Arthur Campbell, D.J. Thornton and Yves Zenou

No 20425, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: A growing body of empirical evidence reveals a fundamental asymmetry in the diffusion of social behaviors: prosocial behaviors often exhibit strategic substitutability ("bystander effects"), while antisocial behaviors exhibit strategic complementarities ("licensing effects"). Moreover, even a single behavior (e.g., protest participation) can be a complement in some settings and a substitute in others. To unify these findings, we develop a model of strategic diffusion on networks with positive (prosocial) or negative (antisocial) spillovers. Our results rely on a novel conception of influence, capturing the causal impact of an individual's adoption on others. Prosocial behaviors are complementary in sparse networks but substitutable in dense ones, while antisocial behaviors exhibit the reverse pattern. Our model predicts that prosocial behaviors emerge continuously, while antisocial behaviors exhibit a discontinuous, sudden emergence. Effective policies can target the network density or perceptions of the extent of spillovers to encourage prosocial behaviors and inhibit antisocial ones.

Keywords: Diffusion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D43 D85 L13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-07
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP20425 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:20425

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP20425

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CEPR ().