Evolution of social norms for moral judgment
Taylor A. Kessinger, Corina E. Tarnita, and Joshua B. Plotkin

TL;DR
This paper presents a mathematical model exploring how social norms for moral judgment evolve and compete within stratified populations, highlighting conditions that lead to norm dominance or destabilization of cooperation.
Contribution
It introduces a model where different groups adopt competing moral norms, analyzing how norms spread and dominate based on group dynamics and reputation updates.
Findings
A minority group can dominate if it adopts Stern Judging.
Stratification often destabilizes cooperation unless in-group interactions are favored.
Norm competition influences the evolution of moral assessment standards.
Abstract
Reputations provide a powerful mechanism to sustain cooperation, as individuals cooperate with those of good social standing. But how should moral reputations be updated as we observe social behavior, and when will a population converge on a common norm of moral assessment? Here we develop a mathematical model of cooperation conditioned on reputations, for a population that is stratified into groups. Each group may subscribe to a different social norm for assessing reputations, and so norms compete as individuals choose to move from one group to another. We show that a group initially comprising a minority of the population may nonetheless overtake the entire population--especially if it adopts the Stern Judging norm, which assigns a bad reputation to individuals who cooperate with those of bad standing. When individuals do not change group membership, stratifying reputation information…
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Taxonomy
TopicsEvolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation · Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence · Complex Network Analysis Techniques
