Cultural trends and popularity cycles can be observed all around us, yet our theories of social influence and identity expression do not explain what perpetuates these complex, often unpredictable social dynamics. We propose a theory of social identity expression based on the opposing, but not mutually exclusive, motives to conform and to be unique among one’s neighbors in a social network. We find empirical evidence for both conformity and uniqueness motives in an analysis of the popularity of given names. Generalizing across forms of identity expression, we then model the social dynamics that arise from these motives. We find that the dynamics typically enter random walks or stochastic limit cycles rather than converging to a static equilibrium. The dynamics also exhibit momentum, preserve diversity, and usually produce more conformity between neighbors, in line with empirical stylized facts. We also prove that without social network structure or, alternatively, without the uniqueness motive, reasonable adaptive dynamics would necessarily converge to equilibrium. Thus, we show that nuanced psychological assumptions (recognizing preferences for uniqueness along with conformity) and realistic social network structure are both critical to our account of the emergence of complex, unpredictable cultural trends. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)

中文翻译：

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潮人和酷：身份表达、趋势和时尚的博弈论分析。

在我们周围可以观察到文化趋势和流行周期，但我们关于社会影响和身份表达的理论并不能解释是什么使这些复杂的、往往不可预测的社会动态持续存在。我们提出了一种社会认同表达理论，该理论基于对立但不相互排斥的动机，即在社交​​网络中的邻居中顺从和独特。我们在分析给定名称的流行度时发现了一致性和独特性动机的经验证据。概括各种形式的身份表达，然后我们对这些动机产生的社会动态进行建模。我们发现动力学通常进入随机游走或随机极限环，而不是收敛到静态平衡。动态也表现出动力，保持多样性，并且通常会在邻居之间产生更多的一致性，这与经验的程式化事实一致。我们还证明，如果没有社会网络结构，或者没有唯一性动机，合理的自适应动态必然会趋于平衡。因此，我们表明，细微的心理假设（识别对独特性和一致性的偏好）和现实的社会网络结构对于我们解释复杂、不可预测的文化趋势的出现都至关重要。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2021 APA，保留所有权利）我们表明，细微的心理假设（识别对独特性和一致性的偏好）和现实的社会网络结构对于我们解释复杂、不可预测的文化趋势的出现都至关重要。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2021 APA，保留所有权利）我们表明，细微的心理假设（识别对独特性和一致性的偏好）和现实的社会网络结构对于我们解释复杂、不可预测的文化趋势的出现都至关重要。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2021 APA，保留所有权利）