Recent extensions of the Axelrod model of cultural dissemination (Klemm et al
2003) showed that global diversity is extremely fragile with small amounts of
cultural mutation. This seemed to undermine the original Axelrod theory that
homophily preserves diversity. We show that cultural diversity is surprisingly
robust if we increase the tendency towards homophily as follows. First, we
raised the threshold of similarity below which influence is precluded. Second,
we allowed agents to be influenced by all neighbors simultaneously, instead of
only one neighbor as assumed in the orginal model. Computational experiments
show how both modifications strongly increase the robustness of diversity
against mutation. We also find that our extensions may reverse at least one of
the main results of Axelrod. While Axelrod predicted that a larger number of
cultural dimensions (features) reduces diversity, we find that more features
may entail higher levels of diversity.Comment: 21 pages, 8 figures, Submitted for presentation in Mathematical
  Sociology Session, Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association
  (ASA), 200

Flache, Andreas

Macy, Michael W.

English

arXiv

University of Groningen Research Database

Local Convergence and Global Diversity:The Robustness of Cultural Homophily

Introduction Cultural diversity is both persistent and precarious. People in different regions of the world are increasingly exposed to global influences from mass media, internet communication, interregional migration and mass tourism. English is rapidly becoming Earth’s Lingua Franca, and Western music, films, and fashions can be found even in remote villages around the globe. While some authors point to the pervasiveness of cultural differences, others expect globalization to lead to the emergence of a universal monoculture (cf. Greig, 2002). This expectation is grounded not only in empirical observation of recent trends (Friedman, 2005) but also in formal theoretical models of social influence that predict an inexorable tendency toward cultural convergence (French 1956; Abelson 1964). Abelson proved that convergence to global consensus was inevitable in what he called a “compact” network – in which there are no subgroups that are entirely cut off from outside influences. Friedkin and Johnson (1999) showed later that even in compact networks some diversity may remain if actors’ initial opinions reflect persistent individual interests that are entirely neutralized by outside influences. [....

ARTS repository - University of Groningen

University of Groningen

Introduction

Cultural diversity is both persistent and precarious. People in different regions of the world
are increasingly exposed to global influences from mass media, internet communication, interregional
migration and mass tourism. English is rapidly becoming Earth’s Lingua Franca,
and Western music, films, and fashions can be found even in remote villages around the
globe. While some authors point to the pervasiveness of cultural differences, others expect
globalization to lead to the emergence of a universal monoculture (cf. Greig, 2002). This expectation
is grounded not only in empirical observation of recent trends (Friedman, 2005) but
also in formal theoretical models of social influence that predict an inexorable tendency toward
cultural convergence (French 1956; Abelson 1964). Abelson proved that convergence to
global consensus was inevitable in what he called a “compact” network – in which there are
no subgroups that are entirely cut off from outside influences. Friedkin and Johnson (1999)
showed later that even in compact networks some diversity may remain if actors’ initial opinions
reflect persistent individual interests that are entirely neutralized by outside influences.
[....]

University of Groningen Digital Archive

Local Convergence and Global Diversity: The Robustness of Cultural Homophily

NARCIS 

Local Convergence and Global Diversity: The Robustness of Cultural
  Homophily

Local Convergence and Global Diversity: The Robustness of Cultural Homophily

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NARCIS

ARTS repository - University of Groningen