dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaModeling Society with Statistical Mechanics: an Application to Cultural Contact and Immigration
| Authors | Pierluigi Contucci, Stefano Ghirlanda |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | physics/0606062 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0606062 |
Abstract
We introduce a general modeling framework to predict the outcomes, at the population level, of individual psychology and behavior. The framework prescribes that researchers build a cost function that embodies knowledge of what trait values (opinions, behaviors, etc.) are favored by individual interactions under given social conditions. Predictions at the population level are then drawn using methods from statistical mechanics, a branch of theoretical physics born to link the microscopic and macroscopic behavior of physical systems. We demonstrate our approach building a model of cultural contact between two cultures (e.g., immigration), showing that it is possible to make predictions about how contact changes the two cultures.
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"abstract": "We introduce a general modeling framework to predict the outcomes, at the\npopulation level, of individual psychology and behavior. The framework\nprescribes that researchers build a cost function that embodies knowledge of\nwhat trait values (opinions, behaviors, etc.) are favored by individual\ninteractions under given social conditions. Predictions at the population level\nare then drawn using methods from statistical mechanics, a branch of\ntheoretical physics born to link the microscopic and macroscopic behavior of\nphysical systems. We demonstrate our approach building a model of cultural\ncontact between two cultures (e.g., immigration), showing that it is possible\nto make predictions about how contact changes the two cultures.",
"arxiv_id": "physics/0606062",
"authors": [
"Pierluigi Contucci",
"Stefano Ghirlanda"
],
"categories": [
"physics.soc-ph",
"cond-mat.stat-mech",
"math-ph",
"math.MP"
],
"title": "Modeling Society with Statistical Mechanics: an Application to Cultural Contact and Immigration",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0606062"
},
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"type": "Model",
"variant": "snapshot-2026-03-01",
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