Modeling the Role of Networks and Individual Differences in Inter-Group Violence.

Alexander Isakov,Amelia Holcomb,Nicholas A Christakis,Luke Glowacki,Tobias Preis

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0148314

Alexander Isakov, Amelia Holcomb + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0148314

Copy DOI

Abstract

There is significant heterogeneity within and between populations in their propensity to engage in conflict. Most research has neglected the role of within-group effects in social networks in contributing to between-group violence and focused instead on the precursors and consequences of violence, or on the role of between-group ties. Here, we explore the role of individual variation and of network structure within a population in promoting and inhibiting group violence towards other populations. Motivated by ethnographic observations of collective behavior in a small-scale society, we describe a model with differentiated roles for individuals embedded within friendship networks. Using a simple model based on voting-like dynamics, we explore several strategies for influencing group-level behavior. When we consider changing population level attitude changes and introducing control nodes separately, we find that a particularly effective control strategy relies on exploiting network degree. We also suggest refinements to our model such as tracking fine-grained information spread dynamics that can lead to further enrichment in using evolutionary game theory models for sociological phenomena.

Highlights

Violence is pervasive within and between human societies, ranging from nuclear families, to hunter-gatherer bands, to nation states [1,2]
We first consider the evolutionary dynamics of the emergence of group violence
We define a parameter we term the Mean Risk-taking Ratio (MRR) as the average of the strategies sj = 1,. . .,N after convergence, divided by the initial average. This represents the growth of risk-taking from a standard baseline. Parameters were chosen such that the baseline MRR is close to one—that is, the population has equal probability of becoming either more or less likely to engage in the group behavior, in this case group violence, than baseline

Summary

Introduction

Violence is pervasive within and between human societies, ranging from nuclear families, to hunter-gatherer bands, to nation states [1,2]. One of the leaders is randomly selected to initiate an intergroup conflict event we call a “raid” (i.e., a group-level, risky, collective action) by recruiting n individuals to whom he is connected directly or indirectly, each of which accepts with probability sj.

Results

Conclusion