The Effects of Motivations to Resist Social Change and Accept Inequality on Perceptions of System Legitimacy

Two theories. system justification theory (SJT) and social dominance theory (SDT). both attempt to explain the prevalence and stability of unequal social systems and are o-ften consider analogous by their proponents. With the newly proposed Two Dimensional i\u27vlodel of System Legitimacy (2D-iv10SL). 1 argue that each theory captures a dimension of system relevant motivations: the resistance to social change (RSC). has primarily been studied by SJT and ranges on a continuum from the resistance to the acceptance of social change and the acceptance of inequality (AOI). has primarily been studied by SDT and ranges on a continuum !rom the acceptance to the rejection of inequality. The 2D- i\u27v!OSL predicts that both of these dimensions will be independently associated with the legitimacy of the social system. indicating that they are not analogous system-relevant motivations. Results·were largely consistent with this expectation (Studies L 2a. & 3) The 2D-MOSL also lends itself to a number of additional predictioris, The AO!should be associated with legitimacy only in cases when the society upholds the·goal of inequality. As expected, the AOI was negatively or nonsignificantly related to legitimacy in more equal European countries (Study I) and an unnamed equal country (Study 2). but positively related in more unequal comparison countries. The RSC. however. should not depend on the inequality of the country and so is related to legitimacy no matter the inequality of the status quo (Studies I and 2a). Study 2b revealed that the RSC predicted legitimacy in stable societies. but not in societies with ever changing cultural values. Taken together. these studies indicate that people legitimize social systems when it matches their motivations related to inequality and social change. Study 3 attempted to extend the theory to measures of racial intolerance, expecting that the AOI would consistently predict intolerance, whereas the RSC would predict intolerance when the status quo is portrayed as unequal compared to when it is portrayed as more equal (see Kay et al.. 2009). Although both RSC and AOI predicted racial intolerance the manipulation of the inequality of the status quo did not moderate any of the associations. Study 4 proposed that there are situations where the AOI and RSC contlicL especially for people high on the RSC. People in an unequal system who are high on the RSC and low on the AOI could feel conflict because these individuals disagree with the overall structure of the so1=iety, but yet disavow the change needed to rectify the situation. In Study 4. I tested whether this conflict resulted in feelings of ambivalence across measures of subjective and objective system ambivalence. The results indicated that people did experience system ambivalence and that this ambivalence varied depending on participants AOI and RSC and the inequality of the status quo; however, the precise individuals expects to exhibit the highest levels of ambivalence did not emerge. Instead it appeared that people who are used to being antagonistic to the system greatly reduced their ambivalence when they were given information that suggested the system was in line with their own goals. In sum. results were supportive of the primary predictions of the 20-MOSL indicating that it may be a viable imegration of SJT and SOT. but less supportive of the many differem secondary predictions

Collective Phenomena and Non-Finite State Computation in a Human Social System

We investigate the computational structure of a paradigmatic example of distributed social interaction: that of the open-source Wikipedia community. We examine the statistical properties of its cooperative behavior, and perform model selection to determine whether this aspect of the system can be described by a finite-state process, or whether reference to an effectively unbounded resource allows for a more parsimonious description. We find strong evidence, in a majority of the most-edited pages, in favor of a collective-state model, where the probability of a "revert" action declines as the square root of the number of non-revert actions seen since the last revert. We provide evidence that the emergence of this social counter is driven by collective interaction effects, rather than properties of individual users.Comment: 23 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables; to appear in PLoS ON

Propagators and Solvers for the Algebra of Modular Systems

To appear in the proceedings of LPAR 21. Solving complex problems can involve non-trivial combinations of distinct knowledge bases and problem solvers. The Algebra of Modular Systems is a knowledge representation framework that provides a method for formally specifying such systems in purely semantic terms. Formally, an expression of the algebra defines a class of structures. Many expressive formalism used in practice solve the model expansion task, where a structure is given on the input and an expansion of this structure in the defined class of structures is searched (this practice overcomes the common undecidability problem for expressive logics). In this paper, we construct a solver for the model expansion task for a complex modular systems from an expression in the algebra and black-box propagators or solvers for the primitive modules. To this end, we define a general notion of propagators equipped with an explanation mechanism, an extension of the alge- bra to propagators, and a lazy conflict-driven learning algorithm. The result is a framework for seamlessly combining solving technology from different domains to produce a solver for a combined system.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of LPAR 2

Conflict and Computation on Wikipedia: a Finite-State Machine Analysis of Editor Interactions

What is the boundary between a vigorous argument and a breakdown of relations? What drives a group of individuals across it? Taking Wikipedia as a test case, we use a hidden Markov model to approximate the computational structure and social grammar of more than a decade of cooperation and conflict among its editors. Across a wide range of pages, we discover a bursty war/peace structure where the systems can become trapped, sometimes for months, in a computational subspace associated with significantly higher levels of conflict-tracking "revert" actions. Distinct patterns of behavior characterize the lower-conflict subspace, including tit-for-tat reversion. While a fraction of the transitions between these subspaces are associated with top-down actions taken by administrators, the effects are weak. Surprisingly, we find no statistical signal that transitions are associated with the appearance of particularly anti-social users, and only weak association with significant news events outside the system. These findings are consistent with transitions being driven by decentralized processes with no clear locus of control. Models of belief revision in the presence of a common resource for information-sharing predict the existence of two distinct phases: a disordered high-conflict phase, and a frozen phase with spontaneously-broken symmetry. The bistability we observe empirically may be a consequence of editor turn-over, which drives the system to a critical point between them.Comment: 23 pages, 3 figures. Matches published version. Code for HMM fitting available at http://bit.ly/sfihmm ; time series and derived finite state machines at bit.ly/wiki_hm

Bargaining and Influence in Conflict Situations

[Excerpt] This chapter examines bargaining as an influence process through which actors attempt to resolve a social conflict. Conflict occurs when two or more interdependent actors have incompatible preferences and perceive or anticipate resistance from each other (Blalock 1989; Kriesberg 1982). Bargaining is a basic form of goal-directed action that involves both intentions to influence and efforts by each actor to carry out these intentions. Tactics are verbal and/or nonverbal actions designed to maneuver oneself into a favorable position vis-a-vis another or to reach some accommodation. Our treatment of bargaining subsumes the concept of negotiation (see Morley and Stephenson 1977). This chapter is organized around a conceptual framework that distinguishes basic types of bargaining contexts. We begin by introducing the framework and then present an overview of and analyze theoretical and empirical work on each type of bargaining context