Social Dynamics

Description

Brian Skyrms applies adaptive dynamics (of cultural evolution and individual learning) to social theory, investigating altruism, spite, fairness, trust, division of labor, and signaling. Correlation is seen to be fundamental. Spontaneous emergence of social structure and of signaling systems are examined in the context of learning dynamics. Cover Contents List of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgments Introduction Part I. Correlation and the Social Contract 1. Evolution and the Social Contract Part II. Importance of Dynamics 2. Trust, Risk, and the Social Contract 3. Bargaining with Neighbors: Is Justice Contagious? 4. Stability and Explanatory Significance of Some Simple Evolutionary Models 5. Dynamics of Conformist Bias 6. Chaos and the Explanatory Significance of Equilibrium: Strange Attractors in Evolutionary Game Dynamics 7. Evolutionary Dynamics of Collective Action in N-person Stag Hunt Dilemmas 8. Learning to Take Turns: The Basics 9. Evolutionary Considerations in the Framing of Social Norms Part III. Dynamic Networks 10. Learning to Network 11. A Dynamic Model of Social Network Formation 12. Network Formation by Reinforcement Learning: The Long and the Medium Run 13. Time to Absorption in Discounted Reinforcement Models Part IV. Dynamics of Signals 14. Learning to Signal: Analysis of a Micro-level Reinforcement Model 15. Inventing New Signals 16. Signals, Evolution, and the Explanatory Power of Transient Information 17. Co-Evolution of Pre-play Signaling and Cooperation 18. Evolution of Signaling Systems with Multiple Senders and Receivers Index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W Y Z