"Doing what others do" does not stabilize continuous norms

Area of Science:

• Evolutionary biology
• Social sciences
• Behavioral economics

Background:

• Social norms drive behavioral variation across human populations.
• Previous models assumed discrete norm variants, limiting understanding of continuous behavioral strategies.
• Deviance is often deterred by social sanctions and coordination failures.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a mathematical model for the evolutionary dynamics of continuously varying social norms.
• To investigate how continuous variation in social payoffs affects norm stability and diversity.
• To explore the influence of environmental pressures, individual preferences, and cognitive factors on norm evolution.

Main Methods:

• Mathematical modeling of evolutionary game theory.
• Analysis of continuously varying behavioral strategies and social payoffs.
• Simulation of norm dynamics under varying environmental and individual pressures.

Main Results:

• Continuous variation in social payoffs does not lead to multiple stable equilibria.
• Environmental pressures, individual preferences, and cognitive factors significantly influence norm outcomes, even if weak.
• Populations linked by migration converge to a single norm in the absence of other factors.

Conclusions:

• The content of social norms is less arbitrary and historically constrained than previously thought.
• Norms can evolve towards optimal individual or group-level solutions.
• Stable cooperative norms may require evolved moral preferences, not solely social sanctions.