Social evaluations and networks : a proposal for integration

In social groups, individuals usually exchange information about their peers’ actions, behaviors and attitudes. This exchange of information allows individuals to make more accurate and complete evaluations of other people; on the other hand, knowing facts about potential partners is pivotal to the establishment of new social links. In this work, a bottom-up approach will be applied to model the relationship between social networks and different kinds of social evaluations. Results coming from Agent-Based social simulations will be reported and discussed in order to shed light on the emergence of complex social phenomena from the interaction among single agents’ mental states and behaviours, namely the micro-macro link. More specifically, different types of social evaluations may affect the emergence of innovation and the network configuration of artificial firms working into an industrial cluster. 1 Cognition and the micro-macro link Agents living in social systems are actually embedded in complex networks of relationships. Social groups can be described as networks with different sizes and configurations in which agents can occupy more or less peripheral positions, depending on the strength and the number of their links. In social groups, individuals usually exchange information about other agents, their actions, behaviours and attitudes, even if they have never met each other before. This exchange of information is essential for two reasons. On one hand, gathering information allows to make more accurate and complete evaluations of other people; on the other hand, knowing facts about potential partners is pivotal to the establishment of new social links and permits to enlarge the social group through the inclusion of far and distant nodes. In a top-down perspective, social networks are described as complex systems of relationships among several nodes interconnected through diverse links in a variety of ways. This level of description applies to networks already given but does not allow to explain how networks emerge, evolve and change. If we want to understand how networks are created, an alternative approach is needed: following a bottom-up perspective, we claim that social networks are patterns of relationships among the goals of a given set of agents [8]. Heterogeneous agents, endowed with different beliefs, goals and resources are dependent upon each other to accomplish their tasks and achieve their goals. Basically, this means that agent x depends upon agent y, or upon its resources, to achieve its goals. Moving from this simple relationship between two agents it is possible to describe different macro-phenomena, their emergence and evolution. 1 Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, ISTC CNR, Italy, email: francesca.giardini@istc.cnr. it In fact, social complex phenomena, such as reputation, norms, and networks, emerge not only from agents’ behaviours, but also derive from their cognitive representations and states. Cognition plays a crucial role in combining micro and macro levels: macro-social phenomena may emerge, unintentionally, from micro-elements and their interactions. Aim of this work is to investigate how image and reputation, two different kinds of social evaluations, may affect the way in which agents are linked, i.e. their networks’ configuration. Social evaluations and their transmission, namely gossip, are pervasive in human societies and can actually inform agents’ networks of relationships. In order to unfold the connection between social evaluations and networks we need to model agents’ minds and to understand why and about whom agents engage in gossip. In what follows, main theories about evaluations and their transmission will be briefly reviewed with the purpose of highlighting the importance of social evaluations for human societies and of defining the framework of this research. Secondly, a cognitive account of social evaluations will be proposed in order to show how the macro level can emerge from agents’ goals and beliefs. Some results coming from simulation experiments with artificial agents will be provided to support the model and to emphasize the importance of cognitive modeling to understand macro phenomena. Finally, future directions of research will be proposed. 1.1 Reputation and gossip: an introduction The importance of social evaluations has been addressed by a variety of disciplines, with two distinct foci: reputation and gossip. Reputation plays a fundamental role in social order, adding at the same time cohesiveness to social groups and allowing for distributed social control and sanctioning (plus a number of other functionalities, [6]). People use reputational information to make decisions about possible interactions, to evaluate candidate partners, to understand and predict their behaviours, and so on. The generation, transmission and manipulation of these beliefs contributes to regulate natural societies from the morning of mankind [12]). According to Frith and Frith [15], there are three ways to learn about other people: through direct experience, through observation and through cultural information. When the first two modalities are not available, agents turn to cultural information or, in our terms, to social evaluations in order to get some knowledge about potential partners and to predict their behaviours. This kind of information allows people to forecast, at least partially or approximately, what kind of social interaction they can expect and how that relationship could evolve, replacing personal experience in (a) identifying cheaters and isolating them, and in (b) easily finding trustful partners. Furthermore, in human societies reputation transmission facilitates the formation of groups [19]: gossipers share and transmit relevant social information about group members within the group, at the same time isolating out-group individuals. Besides, reputation contributes to stratification and social control, since it works as a tool for sanctioning deviant behaviours and for promoting, even through learning, those behaviours that are functional with respect to the groups goals and objectives. Reputation is also considered as a means for sustaining and promoting the diffusion of norms and norm conformity [28]. Social evaluations are crucial also in a developmental perspective, as demonstrated by Hamlin, Wynn and Bloom [20]. In their work with preverbal infants (6-, 9-, 10and 12month-old), they found that infants’ social preferences are influenced by others’ behaviors toward unrelated third parties, both in a choice paradigm and in a violation of expectation paradigm: when looking at social interaction events, infants preferred helpers and were independently inclined to avoid hinderers. The authors suggest that this early capacity for evaluations can be a biological adaptation evolved to allow humans to distinguish between cooperators and cheaters and then to engage in cooperative behaviors. On the other hand, assuming an evolutionary perspective, theories of indirect reciprocity and costly signals show how cooperation in large groups can emerge when agents are endowed with or can build a reputation [22, 18]. As Alexander [1] pointed out, indirect reciprocity involves reputation and status, and results in everyone in the group continually being assessed and reassessed. According to this theory, large scale human cooperation can be explained in terms of conditional helping by individuals who want to uphold a reputation and so be included in future cooperation [23]. Another debated aspect regarding social evaluations is their transmission, i.e. gossip. The content of gossip, i.e. personal information about an absent third party, is quite uncontroversial, whereas the nature of the information, either evaluative or factual, is a matter of debate. Some authors require only the repetition of news about an absent third party to define a conversation as gossip, whereas other scholars consider necessary the presence of evaluative remarks to have a gossip talk. Baumeister, Zhang and Vohs [3] describe gossip as an exchange of useful information people can rely upon to face new situations and to behave properly when direct experience is impossible or too costly to acquire. Wert and Salovey [27] highlight the social character of gossip, and define it as an evaluative talk aimed at social comparison. Through gossip people can map the social environment and become conscious of their position whithin it. Rosnow [24] refers to the secure standards of evidence of a proposition, i.e. its veracity, to separate gossip from rumors, as also suggested by Noon and Delbridge [21]. The absence of the gossipee is one of the defining features of gossip, but it is also one of the reasons why gossip is condemned as immoral and is considered a malicious and harmful resource cowards use to criticize their peers [26]. Gossip serves many different social functions, both at the individual and at the group level. Gluckman [19] has been one of the pioneers in the study of gossip and scandal and one of the first to stress their positive virtues, among which their ability to maintain the unity, morals and values of social groups. Fine and Rosnow [13] draw attention to three main social functions served by gossip: information, influence and entertainment. Gossip is a valuable source of information about the community, its members, its norms, values and habits, but it is also useful to map the social environment and to make inoffensive comparisons. Regarding influence, this function is potentially prevalent when newcomers join the group or when there are conflicts between members. Foster [14] adds a fourth function: friendship, that refers both to dyadic relationships and to group bonded together by the sharing of norms and values. Other researchers consider gossiping as a means of knowledge: according to Ben-Ze’ev [5], gossip is a pleasurable way to gather information that is otherwise ha