Complex social networks leave room for randomness, giving rise to new fads. A random and perpetual change in fashion is what you would expect, because neighbors cannot observe every single neighbor in this large community that is playing the “game” of striking optimal distinctiveness. The others could do the same and new trends would not emerge.īut once they scaled up the social networks to represent more complex and realistic communities, the vast majority of the models showed that equilibrium does not occur. For example, neighbor A could look at neighbors B and C and make decisions that render his identity similar to his neighbors with an optimal dose of uniqueness. The researchers found that in very simple social networks, where a handful of neighbors are routinely observing each other and trying to be both similar and slightly different from the other, equilibrium tends to emerge. So what’s the missing factor? To find out, the authors behind the recent study employed a game theory model that incorporated the uniqueness and conformity motives within different types of social networks. Something interesting happens when you try to mathematically model this game: Over time, these two opposing motives tend to converge and find equilibrium, where social groups strike a balance that remains mostly static, with no new fads emerging.īut that clearly is not how our social world works (as the evolution from bell-bottom jeans to baggy jeans to skinny jeans shows, for example). In other words, most people play a social game where the goal is to find the sweet spot where we broadcast an identity that’s cool but not too eccentric. In the real world, groups of people try to strike an optimal balance between these two motives. On the other hand, if we only wanted to be unique, then we would expect a social world where there is very little consensus on what’s cool: Everyone would be trying to set themselves apart from the pack. If we only had the desire to fit in, then we would expect whatever is popular - baby names, a certain cut of jeans, a particular style of music - to stay more or less constantly popular over the decades. The study focused on two opposing - but not mutually exclusive - psychological drivers: our desire to fit in with our peers and our desire to be unique. But why? Although most people can intuitively discern the cool from the outdated, the psychological and social dynamics that drive fads have remained more difficult to understand.Ī recent study published in Psychological Reviewaimed to shed light on those dynamics, using popular baby names as a cultural trend to analyze through mathematical models. From names to clothes to music, it is a good bet that what is trendy today will be unfashionable a decade from now.
from 1900 to 1910, while the second set included some of the most popular choices from the 2010s. If you guessed the first group, you would probably be correct: Those names ranked among the most popular baby girl names in the U.S.
The second group includes Emma, Olivia, and Isabella. The first group includes Florence, Mildred, and Ethel. You know nothing about their background or age. Imagine you were going to meet two groups of people.
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