| Popis: |
Through a behavioral coordination game played by groups of humans and simulated with agent-based models, we investigated a social network dilemma that we call {\em fraughtness}. Seven players, remotely connected to one another in various topologies via a computer network, each had to move a slider to the left or right along a horizontal bar on their screen. The goal was for all the players to move their slider to the same end of the bar. Players received feedback indicating the degree to which they and their neighbors in the topology agreed about the choice of side. When the topology had a hierarchical branching structure, the groups often got stuck in fraughtness: players on one branch favored one end of the bar, while players on the other branch favored the other; because all were receiving supportive local feedback, nobody wanted to change. Nevertheless, after being stuck in fraughtness for some time, most groups managed to escape. Fraughtness is arguably an analog of generally negatively viewed social phenomena like polarization and echo chambers. Our analyses suggest that while fraughtness is problematic, it is closely linked to successful structure formation---it thus may be most effective to focus not on how to banish it, but on how to resolve it. |
