INSTABILITY OF HUMAN SOCIETIES AS A RESULT OF CONFORMITY

A. L. Efros () and P. Désesquelles
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A. L. Efros: University of Utah, Salt Lake City UT 84112, USA
P. Désesquelles: Institut de Physique Nucléaire, 15 rue Georges Clémenceau, F91406 Orsay, France

International Journal of Modern Physics C (IJMPC), 2005, vol. 16, issue 10, 1577-1585

Abstract: We introduce a new model that mimics the strong and sudden effects induced by conformity in tightly interacting human societies. Such effects range from mere crowd phenomena to dramatic political turmoil. The model is a modified version of the Ising Hamiltonian. We have studied the properties of this Hamiltonian using both a Metropolis simulation and analytical derivations. Our study shows that increasing the value of the conformity parameter, results in a first order phase transition. As a result a majority of people begin to honestly support the idea that may contradict the moral principles of a normal human beings though each individual would support the moral principle without tight interaction with the society. Thus, above some critical level of conformity our society destabilizes with respect to ideas that might be doubtful. Our model includes, in a simplified way, human diversity with respect to loyalty to the moral principles.

Keywords: Conformity; opinion dynamics; social impact (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
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DOI: 10.1142/S012918310500814X

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