Social Dynamics [Hardcover]

Brian Skyrms presents eighteen essays which apply adaptive dynamics (of cultural evolution and individual learning) to social theory. Altruism, spite, fairness, trust, division of labor, and signaling are treated from this perspective. Correlation is seen to be of fundamental importance. Interactions with neighbors in space, on static networks, and on co-evolving dynamics networks are investigated. Spontaneous emergence of social structure and of signaling systems are examined in the context of learning dynamics.

Introduction
Part I: Correlation and the Social Contract
Introduction to part I
1. Evolution and the Social Contract
Part II: Importance of Dynamics
Introduction to part II
2. Trust, Risk, and the Social Contract
3. Bargaining with Neighbors: Is Justice Contagious?,with Jason Alexander
4. Stability and Explanatory Significance of Some Simple Evolutionary Models
5. Dynamics of Conformist Bias
6. Chaos and the Explanatory Significance of Equilibrium: Strange Attractors in Evolutionary Game Dynamics
7. Evolutionary Dynamics of Collective Action in N-person Stag Hunt Dilemmas,with Jorge Pacheco, Francisco Santos and Max Souza
8. Learning to Take Turns,with Peter Vanderschraaf
9. Evolutionary Considerations in the Framing of Social Norms,with Kevin Zollman
Part III: Dynamic Networks
Introduction to part III
10. Learning to Network,with Robin Pemantle
11. A Dynamic Model of Social Network Formation,with Robin Pemantle
12. Network Formation by Reinforcement Learning: The Long and the Medium Run,with Robin Pemantle
13. Time to Absorption in Discounted Reinforcement Models,with Robin Pemantle
Part IV: Dynamics of Signals
Introduction to part IV
14. Learning to Signal: Analysis of a Micro-Level Reinforcement Model,with Raffaele Argiento, Robin Pemantle aló}