Musso Andrea, Helbing Dirk
Computational Social Science, ETH Zürich, Ramistrasse 81, Zürich 8092, Switzerland.
Complexity Science Hub, Josefstädter Strasse 39, Vienna 1080, Austria.
R Soc Open Sci. 2024 May 22;11(5):230505. doi: 10.1098/rsos.230505. eCollection 2024 May.
Socio-diversity, the variety of human opinions, ideas, behaviours and styles, has profound implications for social systems. While it fuels innovation, productivity and collective intelligence, it can also complicate communication and erode trust. So what mechanisms can influence it? This paper studies how fundamental characteristics of social networks can support or hinder socio-diversity. It employs models of cultural evolution, mathematical analysis and numerical simulations. We find that pronounced inequalities in the distribution of connections obstruct socio-diversity. By contrast, the prevalence of close-knit communities, a scarcity of long-range connections, and a significant tie density tend to promote it. These results open new perspectives for understanding how to change social networks to sustain more socio-diversity and, thereby, societal innovation, collective intelligence and productivity.
社会多样性，即人类观点、思想、行为和风格的多样性，对社会系统有着深远影响。虽然它能推动创新、提高生产力并激发集体智慧，但也可能使沟通变得复杂并削弱信任。那么，哪些机制能够影响社会多样性呢？本文研究社会网络的基本特征如何支持或阻碍社会多样性。研究采用了文化进化模型、数学分析和数值模拟方法。我们发现，连接分布的显著不平等会阻碍社会多样性。相比之下，紧密社区的普遍存在、远距离连接的稀缺以及较高的连接密度往往会促进社会多样性。这些结果为理解如何改变社会网络以维持更多的社会多样性，从而促进社会创新、集体智慧和生产力开辟了新的视角。
