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Behavioral conformity in games with many players

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  • Wooders, Myrna
  • Cartwright, Edward
  • Selten, Reinhard

Abstract

In the literature of psychology and economics it is frequently observed that individuals tend to conform in their behavior to the behavior of similar individuals. A fundamental question is whether the outcome of such behavior can be consistent with self-interest. We propose that this consistency requires the existence of a Nash or approximate Nash equilibrium that induces a partition of the player set into relatively few societies, each consisting of similar individuals playing the same or similar strategies. In this paper we introduce a notion of a society and characterize a family of games admitting the existence of such an equilibrium. We also introduce the concept of 'crowding types' into our description of players and distinguish between the crowding type of a player -- those characteristics of a player that have direct effects on others -- and his tastes, taken to directly affect only that player. With the assumptions of 'within crowding type anonymity' and 'linearity of taste-types' we show that the number of groups can be uniformly bounded.
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  • Wooders, Myrna & Cartwright, Edward & Selten, Reinhard, 2006. "Behavioral conformity in games with many players," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 347-360, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:57:y:2006:i:2:p:347-360
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    Cited by:

    1. Chaitanya Gokhale & Arne Traulsen, 2014. "Evolutionary Multiplayer Games," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 4(4), pages 468-488, December.
    2. Edward Cartwright & Myrna Wooders, 2009. "On equilibrium in pure strategies in games with many players," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 38(1), pages 137-153, March.
    3. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/8642 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Edward Cartwright & Myrna Wooders, 2014. "Correlated Equilibrium, Conformity, and Stereotyping in Social Groups," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 16(5), pages 743-766, October.
    5. Edward Cartwright & Myrna Wooders, 2014. "Correlated Equilibrium, Conformity, and Stereotyping in Social Groups," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 16(5), pages 743-766, October.
    6. Wu, Bin, 2022. "On pure-strategy Nash equilibria in large games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 305-315.
    7. Cartwright, Edward, 2009. "Social norms: Does it matter whether agents are rational or boundedly rational?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 403-410, June.
    8. Michael C Burda & Daniel S Hamermesh & Philippe Weil, 2008. "Total Work, Gender and Social Norms in EU and US Time Use," Post-Print hal-00972821, HAL.
    9. Grajzl, Peter & Baniak, Andrzej, 2012. "Mandating behavioral conformity in social groups with conformist members," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 479-493.
    10. Edward Cartwright & Myrna Wooders, 2008. "Behavioral Properties of Correlated Equilibrium; Social Group Structures with Conformity and Stereotyping," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0814, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    11. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/8642 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. John Asker & Mariagiovanna Baccara & SangMok Lee, 2021. "Patent auctions and bidding coalitions: structuring the sale of club goods," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 52(3), pages 662-690, September.
    13. Azrieli, Yaron, 2009. "Categorizing others in a large game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 351-362, November.
    14. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/8642 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Carmona, Guilherme, 2008. "Purification of Bayesian-Nash equilibria in large games with compact type and action spaces," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(12), pages 1302-1311, December.
    16. Edward Cartwright, 2007. "On the Emergence of Social Norms," Studies in Economics 0704, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    17. Hu, Kaipeng & Guo, Hao & Geng, Yini & Shi, Lei, 2019. "The effect of conformity on the evolution of cooperation in multigame," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 516(C), pages 267-272.
    18. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/8642 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Carmona, Guilherme & Podczeck, Konrad, 2009. "On the existence of pure-strategy equilibria in large games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(3), pages 1300-1319, May.
    20. Renato Soeiro & Alberto A. Pinto, 2022. "A Note on Type-Symmetries in Finite Games," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(24), pages 1-13, December.
    21. Meng, Delong, 2021. "Learning from like-minded people," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 231-250.
    22. Alvarez, Emiliano & Brida, Juan Gabriel, 2019. "What about the others? Consensus and equilibria in the presence of self-interest and conformity in social groups," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 518(C), pages 285-298.
    23. Gradwohl, Ronen & Reingold, Omer, 2010. "Partial exposure in large games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 602-613, March.
    24. Guilherme Carmona, 2009. "Intermediate Preferences and Behavioral Conformity in Large Games," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 11(1), pages 9-25, February.

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    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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