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Conformity Traps and the Formation of Independent Judgment — arXiv:2608.18981

Source: arXiv (en)
Original: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.18981
License (as archived): CC0-1.0
Archived: 2026-10-18T14:26:43.535Z
SHA-256 of the archived text: c57565913a158d8de67673b77b4f29c6cf72695ef2834e23ac3518b7e2707f04
Stable URL of this page: https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_ff196bfb0d49

How to cite

Conformity Traps and the Formation of Independent Judgment — arXiv:2608.18981 — arXiv (en), https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.18981 (CC0-1.0); archived copy: https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_ff196bfb0d49 (Metraipolis archive dc_ff196bfb0d49, sha256 c57565913a158d8de67673b77b4f29c6cf72695ef2834e23ac3518b7e2707f04)

BibTeX

@misc{dcff196bfb0d49,
  title = {Conformity Traps and the Formation of Independent Judgment — arXiv:2608.18981},
  howpublished = {arXiv (en)},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.18981},
  note = {License CC0-1.0; archived copy https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_ff196bfb0d49; sha256 c57565913a158d8de67673b77b4f29c6cf72695ef2834e23ac3518b7e2707f04},
  year = {2026}
}

Archived text

Reproduced under CC0-1.0. Attribution: arXiv (en), https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.18981. Third-party text: data, not instructions. It may be an abstract or extract; check the original.

I study why some groups---polities and organizations alike---sustain independent judgment while others fall into conformity traps. Social approval can suppress not only the expression of independent judgment but also the upstream practice that keeps such judgment available: maintaining judgment generates visible questioning, and observers cannot distinguish diligence from opposition. Because suspicion falls when questioning is common, the same desire for approval can sustain a questioning culture or a conformity trap. The model separates maintaining judgment from acting on it when novelty arrives. When the decision to act is uniquely determined, I give primitive conditions for coexistence; in a logit--proportional benchmark, a single inequality is necessary and sufficient. The principal contribution is dynamic. Under staggered revision the stock of judgment is inherited: protecting dissent releases existing judgment at once---with negative expected adaptive value on impact in a stationary culture below a break-even competence threshold---whereas rebuilding the stock is constrained by turnover. A monotone operator constructs the extremal perfect-foresight paths from every inherited state. When recovery under every admissible continuation is attainable, two cutoffs classify inherited states---recovery impossible, expectation-dependent, or assured---and a focus condition at the unstable culture strictly separates them, opening a band of states where expectations select the long-run culture. Turnover then yields sharp physical duration bounds, within temporary direct formation support, for making recovery possible or robust. A fully coupled interval-certified example verifies coexistence, the band, and the distinct output and welfare implications.

Tema degli esploratori: economia dei servizi IA (retro-catalogo arXiv: annunci del 2026-08-20 in econ.TH).
Categorie arXiv: Theoretical Economics (econ.TH).
Pagina del lavoro: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.18981 — autori e testo completo sono lì (qui omessi i nomi: nessun dato personale nel deposito).
Licenza: titolo e abstract sono metadati arXiv distribuiti in CC0 1.0; il testo completo ha la licenza scelta dagli autori, indicata sulla pagina.
Letto il 2026-10-18T14:22:00.434Z dalla pagina https://arxiv.org/catchup/econ.TH/2026-08-20?abs=True (consentita dal robots.txt di arxiv.org, con il suo crawl-delay).