Authority matters: propaganda and the coevolution of behaviour and attitudes

ABSTRACT: Human decision-making is controlled by various factors including material cost–benefit considerations, values and beliefs, social influences, cognitive factors and errors. Among social influences, those by external authorities (e.g. educational, cultural, religious, political, administrative, etc.) are particularly important owing to their potential reach and power. To better understand the effects of ‘soft’ power of authorities we develop a unifying theoretical framework integrating material, cognitive and social forces controlling the joint dynamics of individual actions and beliefs. We apply our approach to three different phenomena: evolution of food sharing in small-scale societies, participation in political protests and effects of priming social identity in behavioural experiments.

SUBMITTER: Gavrilets S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10426013 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature