2006/09/27 by Damon Centola, Juan Carlos González-Avella, Juan Carlos Gonzalez-Avella +4 · 4 citations
Physics and Astronomy · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Anthropology #Complex Network Analysis Techniques #Convergence (economics) #Cultural diversity #Diversity (politics) #Economic geography #Economics #Epistemology #Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation #Face (sociological concept) #Geography #Globalization #Homophily #Mechanism (biology) #Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence #Political science #Psychology #Social psychology #Social science #Sociocultural evolution #Sociology #physics.soc-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1177/0022002707307632
published as Journal of Conflict Resolution 51, 905-929 (2007) · (8 pages, 8 figures)
arxiv created 2006/09/27 · openalex publication_date 2007/12/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2020/11/23 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Studies of cultural differentiation have shown that social mechanisms that normally lead to cultural convergence—homophily and influence—can also explain how distinct cultural groups can form. However, this emergent cultural diversity has proven to be unstable in the face of cultural drift—small errors or innovations that allow cultures to change from within. The authors develop a model of cultural differentiation that combines the traditional mechanisms of homophily and influence with a third mechanism of network homophily, in which network structure co-evolves with cultural interaction. Results show that in certain regions of the parameter space, these co-evolutionary dynamics can lead to patterns of cultural diversity that are stable in the presence of cultural drift. The authors address the implications of these findings for understanding the stability of cultural diversity in the face of increasing technological trends toward globalization.