Collective Strategy Condensation: When Envy Splits Societies.

Area of Science:

• Socioeconomics
• Game Theory
• Computational Social Science

Background:

• Human societies exhibit complex dynamics influenced by resource distribution, competition, and social comparison.
• Individual differences in payoffs for various societal positions and the impact of competition are key factors.
• The psychological trait of social comparison, manifesting as envy, plays a significant role in societal structures.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the emergence of social stratification in human societies based on specific behavioral traits.
• To model how differing payoffs, competition, and envy interact to create social classes.
• To analyze the game-theoretic underpinnings of spontaneous class formation.

Main Methods:

• A game-theoretic model analyzing Nash equilibria was developed to represent societal interactions.
• The model incorporates differing payoffs for options, competition effects, and the influence of social comparison (envy).
• Extensive numerical simulations were used to validate analytical results for large populations and option sets.

Main Results:

• The combination of differing payoffs, competition, and envy leads to endogenous social stratification.
• Societies spontaneously divide into two classes: an upper class employing individualistic pure strategies and a lower class using a condensed mixed strategy.
• Class separation is a robust outcome, consistent across various population sizes and option availabilities.

Conclusions:

• Envy is a critical driver of social class formation in societies with competitive options and unequal payoffs.
• The model provides a framework for understanding how micro-level behaviors (envy, competition) lead to macro-level structures (social classes).
• The findings offer insights into social dynamics, with potential analogies to physical systems like interacting particles.