Homophily, Cultural Drift, and the Co-Evolution of Cultural Groups

Damon Centola, Juan Carlos González-Avella, Víctor M. Eguíluz and Maxi San Miguel
Additional contact information
Damon Centola: Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Juan Carlos González-Avella: Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Studies and Complex Systems, Campus Universitat de les Illes Balears, Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Víctor M. Eguíluz: Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Studies and Complex Systems, Campus Universitat de les Illes Balears, Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Maxi San Miguel: Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Studies and Complex Systems, Campus Universitat de les Illes Balears, Palma de Mallorca, Spain

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2007, vol. 51, issue 6, 905-929

Abstract: Studies of cultural differentiation have shown that social mechanisms that normally lead to cultural convergence—homophily and influence—can also explain how distinct cultural groups can form. However, this emergent cultural diversity has proven to be unstable in the face of cultural drift—small errors or innovations that allow cultures to change from within. The authors develop a model of cultural differentiation that combines the traditional mechanisms of homophily and influence with a third mechanism of network homophily, in which network structure co-evolves with cultural interaction. Results show that in certain regions of the parameter space, these co-evolutionary dynamics can lead to patterns of cultural diversity that are stable in the presence of cultural drift. The authors address the implications of these findings for understanding the stability of cultural diversity in the face of increasing technological trends toward globalization.

Keywords: social networks; cultural diversity; homophily; cultural drift; social dynamics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002707307632 (text/html)

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:sae:jocore:v:51:y:2007:i:6:p:905-929

DOI: 10.1177/0022002707307632

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Conflict Resolution from Peace Science Society (International)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().