IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/thpobi/v76y2009i3p189-196.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Simulated Trust: A cheap social learning strategy

Author

Listed:
  • Vanderelst, Dieter
  • Ahn, René M.C.
  • Barakova, Emilia I.

Abstract

Animals use heuristic strategies to determine from which conspecifics to learn socially. This leads to directed social learning. Directed social learning protects them from copying non-adaptive information. So far, the strategies of animals, leading to directed social learning, are assumed to rely on (possibly indirect) inferences about the demonstrator’s success. As an alternative to this assumption, we propose a strategy that only uses self-established estimates of the pay-offs of behavior. We evaluate the strategy in a number of agent-based simulations. Critically, the strategy’s success is warranted by the inclusion of an incremental learning mechanism. Our findings point out new theoretical opportunities to regulate social learning for animals. More broadly, our simulations emphasize the need to include a realistic learning mechanism in game-theoretic studies of social learning strategies, and call for re-evaluation of previous findings.

Suggested Citation

  • Vanderelst, Dieter & Ahn, René M.C. & Barakova, Emilia I., 2009. "Simulated Trust: A cheap social learning strategy," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 189-196.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:thpobi:v:76:y:2009:i:3:p:189-196
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tpb.2009.07.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040580909000847
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.tpb.2009.07.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Schlag, Karl H., 1998. "Why Imitate, and If So, How?, : A Boundedly Rational Approach to Multi-armed Bandits," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 130-156, January.
    2. J. Kruskal, 1964. "Multidimensional scaling by optimizing goodness of fit to a nonmetric hypothesis," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 29(1), pages 1-27, March.
    3. Ihara, Yasuo, 2008. "Spread of costly prestige-seeking behavior by social learning," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 148-157.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Maness, Michael, 2017. "Comparison of social capital indicators from position generators and name generators in predicting activity selection," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 374-395.
    2. Ison, Ray & Blackmore, Chris & Iaquinto, Benjamin L., 2013. "Towards systemic and adaptive governance: Exploring the revealing and concealing aspects of contemporary social-learning metaphors," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 34-42.
    3. Amandine Crespy & Louisa Parks, 2017. "The connection between parliamentary and extra-parliamentary opposition in the EU. From ACTA to the financial crisis," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/249886, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Takahashi, Takuya & Ihara, Yasuo, 2019. "Cultural and evolutionary dynamics with best-of-k learning when payoffs are uncertain," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 27-38.
    2. Roger Shepard, 1974. "Representation of structure in similarity data: Problems and prospects," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 39(4), pages 373-421, December.
    3. Giovanna Boccuzzo & Licia Maron, 2017. "Proposal of a composite indicator of job quality based on a measure of weighted distances," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 51(5), pages 2357-2374, September.
    4. Jonas Hedlund & Carlos Oyarzun, 2018. "Imitation in heterogeneous populations," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 65(4), pages 937-973, June.
    5. Dehai Liu & Hongyi Li & Weiguo Wang & Chuang Zhou, 2015. "Scenario forecast model of long term trends in rural labor transfer based on evolutionary games," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 649-670, July.
    6. Michael Kosfeld, 2002. "Stochastic strategy adjustment in coordination games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 20(2), pages 321-339.
    7. Noemi Schmitt & Jan Tuinstra & Frank Westerhoff, 2018. "Stability and welfare effects of profit taxes within an evolutionary market interaction model," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(3), pages 691-708, August.
    8. Petrohilos-Andrianos, Yannis & Xepapadeas, Anastasios, 2017. "Resource harvesting regulation and enforcement: An evolutionary approach," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 236-253.
    9. Jong-Seok Lee & Dan Zhu, 2012. "Shilling Attack Detection---A New Approach for a Trustworthy Recommender System," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 24(1), pages 117-131, February.
    10. Karl H. Schlag, 2007. "Distribution-Free Learning," Economics Working Papers ECO2007/01, European University Institute.
    11. Waters, George A., 2009. "Chaos in the cobweb model with a new learning dynamic," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1201-1216, June.
    12. Baldini, Ryan, 2012. "Success-biased social learning: Cultural and evolutionary dynamics," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 222-228.
    13. Schumacher, Heiner, 2013. "Imitating cooperation and the formation of long-term relationships," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(1), pages 409-417.
    14. David Hirshleifer & Joshua B. Plotkin, 2021. "Moonshots, investment booms, and selection bias in the transmission of cultural traits," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 118(26), pages 2015571118-, June.
    15. Mengel, Friederike, 2008. "Matching structure and the cultural transmission of social norms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 67(3-4), pages 608-623, September.
    16. Basov, S., 2001. "An Evolutionary Model of Reciprocity," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 812, The University of Melbourne.
    17. Ján Kulfan & Lenka Sarvašová & Michal Parák & Marek Dzurenko & Peter Zach, 2018. "Can late flushing trees avoid attack by moth larvae in temperate forests?," Plant Protection Science, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 54(4), pages 272-283.
    18. Floriana Gargiulo & José J Ramasco, 2012. "Influence of Opinion Dynamics on the Evolution of Games," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(11), pages 1-7, November.
    19. Ma, Jie & Tse, Ying Kei & Wang, Xiaojun & Zhang, Minhao, 2019. "Examining customer perception and behaviour through social media research – An empirical study of the United Airlines overbooking crisis," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 192-205.
    20. Muñoz-Mas, Rafael & Vezza, Paolo & Alcaraz-Hernández, Juan Diego & Martínez-Capel, Francisco, 2016. "Risk of invasion predicted with support vector machines: A case study on northern pike (Esox Lucius, L.) and bleak (Alburnus alburnus, L.)," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 342(C), pages 123-134.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:thpobi:v:76:y:2009:i:3:p:189-196. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/intelligence .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.