Culture-area relation in Axelrod's model for culture dissemination

TL;DR

This study explores how the number of distinct cultures in Axelrod's model varies with territory size, revealing a non-monotonous relationship and a transition between cultural uniformity and diversity.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of the culture-area relationship in Axelrod's model using extensive Monte Carlo simulations.

Findings

Number of cultures decreases beyond a certain area size for low q.

Identifies a discontinuous transition between globalized and polarized regimes.

Reveals a non-monotonous culture-area relation depending on model parameters.

Abstract

Axelrod's model for culture dissemination offers a nontrivial answer to the question of why there is cultural diversity given that people's beliefs have a tendency to become more similar to each other's as people interact repeatedly. The answer depends on the two control parameters of the model, namely, the number $F$ of cultural features that characterize each agent, and the number $q$ of traits that each feature can take on, as well as on the size $A$ of the territory or, equivalently, on the number of interacting agents. Here we investigate the dependence of the number $C$ of distinct coexisting cultures on the area $A$ in Axelrod's model -- the culture-area relationship -- through extensive Monte Carlo simulations. We find a non-monotonous culture-area relation, for which the number of cultures decreases when the area grows beyond a certain size, provided that $q$ is smaller than a threshold value $q_c = q_c (F)$ and $F \geq 3$. In the limit of infinite area, this threshold value signals the onset of a discontinuous transition between a globalized regime marked by a uniform culture (C=1), and a completely polarized regime where all $C = q^F$ possible cultures coexist. Otherwise the culture-area relation exhibits the typical behavior of the species-area relation, i.e., a monotonically increasing curve the slope of which is steep at first and steadily levels off at some maximum diversity value.