Dear all,

We will have our next LIRa session on Thursday, April 22nd. Our speaker is Patricia Rich. You can find the details of the talk below. We will use our recurring zoom link: https://uva-live.zoom.us/j/92907704256?pwd=anY3WkFmQVhLZGhjT2JXMlhjQVl1dz09 (Meeting ID: 929 0770 4256, Passcode: 036024).

Speaker: Patricia Rich

Date and Time: Thursday, April 22nd 2021, 16:30-18:00, Amsterdam time.

Venue: online.

Title: Hidden Costs of Epistemic Conformity: Lessons from Information Cascade Simulations.

Abstract. Information cascades are troubling and well-studied because apparently individually-rational responses to evidence can lead entire communities to conform (participate in cascades), and hence to converge on the wrong answer. Yet existing theory cannot explain why a robust, substantial minority of people in experimental studies do not conform. Groups achieve improved reliability thanks to these non-conformists. I use simulations to study cascade problems in an evolutionary setting. The results show that although conforming maximizes expected fitness, non-conformists can persist and often flourish in the population. The reason is that by its nature, conformity carries an evolutionary cost.

Hope to see you there!

The LIRa team