emergent strongprocessesstrong in group behavior.pdfVIP

CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Emergent Processes in Group Behavior Robert L. Goldstone, Michael E. Roberts, and Todd M. Gureckis Indiana University ABSTRACT—Just as neurons interconnect in networks that interactions (Atran, Medin, Ross, 2005). Social phenomena create structured thoughts beyond the ken of any individ- such as the spread of gossip, the World-Wide Web, the popularity ual neuron, so people spontaneously organize themselves of cultural icons, legal systems, and scientific establishments all into groups to create emergent organizations that no take on a life of their own, complete with their own self-organized individual may intend, comprehend, or even perceive. divisions of labor and specialization, dynamics, feedback loops, Recent technological advances have provided us with growth, and adaptations. unprecedented opportunities for conducting controlled A considerable amount of early work on group behavior from laboratory experiments on human collective behavior. We social psychology focused on interpersonal relations and the describe two experimental paradigms in which we attempt attributes that characterize good leaders or work teams. How- to build predictive bridges between the beliefs, goals, and ever, the social patterns that people form are often organized cognitive capacities of individuals and patterns of behavior without explicit leaders, chains of command, or fixed commu- at the group level, showing how the members of a group nication networks (Ball, 2004). Examples of such spontaneously dynamically allocate themselves to resources and how emerging social patterns include book recommendations on innovations diffuse through a