Where do social structures come from? We know that social structures emerge from interaction between individuals. But not all interactions create durable structures. This course introduces students to a series of micro-mechanisms through which the intended and unintended consequences of interdependent action create macro-level structures that, we as sociologists, care about. How can small initial difference blow-up into large macro-level inequality? Will interpersonal influence alleviate or aggravate inequality? Why do individual actors engage in collective action to create public goods, when everyone will enjoy the benefits of such goods regardless of one’s participation? How large an in-group bias is needed to create segregated neighborhoods? These are examples of questions that are discussed in this seminar. Exploring these questions will lead us to topics in interpersonal influence, diffusion, collective action, and emergence of norms, hierarchies, and segregation patterns, among others.

• Emergence of Cooperation Tournament Webpage
  • Webpage storing results of past tournaments run in SOC3490
  • Direct link to tournament source code here