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It Takes Two to Tango: We-Intentionality and the Dynamics of Social Norms

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The Complexity of Social Norms

Part of the book series: Computational Social Sciences ((CSS))

Abstract

Margaret Thatcher’s “There is no such thing as society” is one of the defining statements of her premiership, describing a world in which only individuals exist and each and everyone needs to take responsibility for their own actions. The spirit of individualism also pervades the social sciences, starting with microeconomic theory but further invading other social sciences in the form of rational choice, exchange or game theory. It is futile to ask which came first, the individualisation of society or the victory of individualism in the social sciences. They feed back into each other like most social phenomena.

Wherever I am, there’s always Pooh,

There’s always Pooh and Me.

Whatever I do, he wants to do,

“Where are you going today?” says Pooh:

“Well, that’s very odd ’cos I was too.

Let’s go together,” says Pooh, says he. “Let’s go together,” says Pooh.

Us Two by A. A. Milne

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Notes

  1. 1.

    http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/1066892

  2. 2.

    For an excellent discussion of emergence in agent-based modelling see Neumann (2006).

  3. 3.

    Thanks to an anonymous referee for this comment.

  4. 4.

    Thanks to an anonymous referee for pointing this out.

  5. 5.

    Note that although the implementation includes implicit punishment, the punishment is only at the point at which there was first a common agreement to do something together. This relates to Gilbert’s obligation criterion of shared intentionality (Gilbert 2009). Punishment linked to commitment is related to the literature on theories of fairness intentions; cf. Gintis, Bowles, and Boyd (2006). Punishment linked to commitment can be made dependent on several variables of the actual situation, such as how much the shared goal depends on the sharing, how early on in the process defection occurs, on past behaviour or whether any doubt was raised before setting off in pursuit of the common goal (cf. Gilbert’s concurrence criterion). Differences in punishment for different defections would be in line with the findings of Falk, Fehr, and Fischbacher (2008), which show that punishment is both outcome orientated (dependency of shared goal on cooperation) and dependent on the attribution of intentionality to the defecting agent (e.g. repeat defection).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Research in Social Simulation, University of Surrey, Surrey, UK

    Corinna Elsenbroich

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  1. Corinna Elsenbroich
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Correspondence to Corinna Elsenbroich .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, United Kingdom

    Maria Xenitidou

  2. Centre for Policy Modelling, Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, Manchester, United Kingdom

    Bruce Edmonds

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Elsenbroich, C. (2014). It Takes Two to Tango: We-Intentionality and the Dynamics of Social Norms. In: Xenitidou, M., Edmonds, B. (eds) The Complexity of Social Norms. Computational Social Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05308-0_5

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