A Polya Urn Model of Conformity

Jun Xue

Cambridge Working Papers in Economics from Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge

Abstract: In this paper we propose to use Polya urn processes to model the emergence of conformity in an environment where people interact with each other sequentially and indirectly, through a common physical facility. Examples include rewinding video tapes, erasing blackboards, and switching headlights, etc. We find that a minimum amount of imitation is able to generate a maximum l evel of conformity. We then reinterpret the result in a group imitation setup, and show that as long as groups imitate each other with positive probabilities, they will end up with the same population composition, irrespective of the initial conditions, and the imitating probabilities.

Keywords: Polya urn; conformity; emergence; social norms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C6 D7 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22
Date: 2006-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe
Note: ET
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cam:camdae:0614

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