Emergence of Social Structures via Preferential Selection

Abstract

We examine a weighted-network multi-agent model with preferential selection such that agents choose partners with the probability $p(w)$, where $w$ is the number of their past selections. When $p(w)$ increases sublinearly with the number of past selections ($p(w)\sim w^{\alpha },\alpha <1$), agents develop a uniform preference for all other agents. At $\alpha =1$, this state looses stability and more complex structures form. For a superlinear increase ($\alpha >1$), strong heterogeneities emerge and agents make selections mainly within small and sometimes asymmetric clusters. Even in a few-agent case, formation of such clusters resembles phase transitions with spontaneous symmetry breaking.

4 pages,Phys. Rev. E (accepted)

References in corpus (2)

• Statistical physics of social dynamics
• A survey of random processes with reinforcement

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Prisoner's dilemma on directed networks