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Social dynamics (orsociodynamics) is the study of the behavior of groups and of the interactions of individual group members, aiming to understand the emergence of complex social behaviors amongmicroorganisms, plants and animals, including humans. It is related tosociobiology but also draws fromphysics andcomplex system sciences.In the last century, sociodynamics was viewed as part ofpsychology, as shown in the work: "Sociodynamics: an integrative theorem of power, authority, interfluence and love".[1] In the 1990s, social dynamics began being viewed as a separate scientific discipline[By whom?]. An important paper in this respect is: "The Laws of Sociodynamics".[2]Then, starting in the 2000s, sociodynamics took off as a discipline of its own, many papers were released in the field in this decade.
The field of social dynamics brings together ideas fromeconomics,sociology,social psychology, and other disciplines, and is a sub-field ofcomplex adaptive systems orcomplexity science. The fundamental assumption of the field is that individuals are influenced by one another's behavior. The field is closely related tosystem dynamics. Like system dynamics, social dynamics is concerned with changes over time and emphasizes the role of feedbacks. However, in social dynamics individual choices and interactions are typically viewed as the source of aggregate level behavior, while system dynamics posits that the structure of feedbacks and accumulations are responsible for system level dynamics.[3] Research in the field typically takes a behavioral approach, assuming that individuals areboundedly rational and act on local information. Mathematical and computational modeling are important tools for studying social dynamics. This field grew out of work done in the 1940s bygame theorists such as Duncan & Luce, and even earlier works by mathematicianArmand Borel.[4] Because social dynamics focuses on individual level behavior, and recognizes the importance of heterogeneity across individuals, strict analytic results are often impossible. Instead, approximation techniques, such asmean-field approximations fromstatistical physics, orcomputer simulations are used to understand the behaviors of the system. In contrast to more traditional approaches in economics, scholars of social dynamics are often interested in non-equilibrium, or dynamic, behavior.[5][6] That is, behavior that changes over time.
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