Homo
                    Socialis
                    and Homo
                    Sapiens

Robert L. Goldstone

doi:10.1561/105.00000019

journal article Jul 29, 2015

Homo Socialis and Homo Sapiens

Robert L. Goldstone

Review of Behavioral Economics Vol. 2 No. 1-2 pp. 77-87 · Emerald

View at Publisher Save 10.1561/105.00000019

Abstract

The assumption that individuals are behaving rationally can, at times, usefully constrain predictions of individual and collective behavior. However, success in predicting human and group behavior will often require relaxing this assumption of rationality, instead employing evolutionary, neural, and cognitive constraints. One particularly important form of neural and cognitive constraint is that interacting individuals each possess a network of concepts, and communities are accordingly social networks of neural networks. The structured nature of human conceptual systems suggests that communicating is better modeled as a process of aligning conceptual systems rather than simply transmitting atomic beliefs. Communicating individuals can establish norms, conceptual structures, and rule systems that did not preexist prior to the communication process. For this reason, the dichotomy between rule-based and centralized groups versus self-organized and decentralized groups is false – one of the major activities that self-organized and decentralized groups engage in is the establishment of rules, laws, norms, leaders, and institutional hierarchies that will then govern their subsequent interactions.

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Cited By

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Dirk Helbing · 2015

Review of Behavioral Economics

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5

Citations

33

References

Details

Published: Jul 29, 2015
Vol/Issue: 2(1-2)
Pages: 77-87

Authors

R

Robert L. Goldstone

Indiana University Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, *

Cite This Article

Robert L. Goldstone (2015). Homo Socialis and Homo Sapiens. Review of Behavioral Economics, 2(1-2), 77-87. https://doi.org/10.1561/105.00000019

Homo Socialis and Homo Sapiens

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