Narrative dynamics in social groups: A discrete choice model.

Abstract

Individuals follow different rules for action: they react swiftly, grasping the short-term advantages in sight, or they waste cognitive resources to complete otherwise easy tasks, but they are able to plan ahead future complex decisions. Scholars from different disciplines studied the conditions under which either decision rule may enhance the fitness of its adopters, with a focus on the environmental features. However, we here propose that a crucial feature of the evolution of populations and their decision rules is rather inter-group interactions. Indeed, we study what happens when two groups support different decision rules, encapsulated in narratives, and their populations interact with each other. In particular, we assume that the payoff of each rule depends on the share of both social groups which adopt such rules. We then describe the most salient dynamics scenarios and identify the conditions which lead to chaotic dynamics and multistability regimes.