http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/berman/P4S3.htm
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/game-evolutionary/
Evolutionary game theory brings a mathematical strategic aspect to the concept of evolution and survival of the fittest. The websites above question the rigidity of game theory when applied to the biological or cultural side of evolution. Using the prisoner’s dilemma as a model for behavior implies that there is an intrinsic […]

Everyone knows that parents are always tougher on the eldest child. Is it because they just get tired of disciplining their kids after the first one? Or is it actually adaptive?
According to this article about a paper published in the April 2008 of the Economic Journal, parents are using an adaptive strategy based […]

Every day we take the benefits from global networks and optimized supply chains for granted. New products become cheaper and more available. Seasonal produce such as strawberries are shipped from around the world and are available year round. Companies can expand their businesses across the globe. Products are assembled leveraging the resources provided by a […]

As discussed in class, cascades can be found in all sorts of life activities. Often when a person does something, he or she can influence his or her neighbor to do the same thing, and before we know it everyone around them has also chosen to do the same thing. This idea can be applied […]

“Network effect” is a term that is used to describe the characteristic of a certain good whose value to the buyer depends on how many other people use the product.
This term is often applied to the use of fax machines, the benefit of using one operating system over another, and the use of social networking […]

This blog post talks about the negative externalities of certain people when in a network. This blog proposes that negative people may be detrimental to the brains of other people. But in making this point, the author observes that of oftentimes, decisions are not made on a conscious level. Neuroscience has discovered that there humans […]

http://www.ccnl.emory.edu/greg/Berns%20Conformity%20final%20printed.pdf
Asch’s paradigm is based on social conformity: when asked to compare line lengths, a surprisingly high percentage of subjects agree with the blatantly erroneous consensus of their peers. Berns et. al. used fMRI to analyze a related decision making process. The task involved looking at a pair of 3D shapes, and judging whether […]

Few weeks ago, we learned about how each websites are linked to others and how we rank these websites by giving websites authority scores. We also learned what web advertising is and how it works. There was an article that talked about how AOL re-strategizing […]

Information Cascades cause all kinds of problems. Even when every participant acts rationally on his or her own behalf, they very frequently result in socially unfavorable outcomes. However, if a participant is able to recognize the existence of a cascade, acknowledges that it may lead to an unfavorable outcome, and blindly follows suit […]

Over the years, diet fads have continued to fill our lives with false hope of losing weight the easy way. Diets including Atkins, the Zone, South Beach, the Low-fat, the Baby Food, the Japanese Food, and the Tabasco Diet have all come and gone, each of them having their time in the limelight as […]