SKM 2021 – scientific programme

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SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme

SOE 4: Dynamics and Scaling of Cities and Societies

SOE 4.2: Topical Talk

Thursday, September 30, 2021, 10:30–11:00, H3

Envy-induced class separation in societies of competing agents — •Claudius Gros — Institute for Theoretical Physics, Goethe University Frankfurt

Everything is relative. This holds for Darwinian selection, which is based on relative fitness advantages, and today’s social success and fairness criteria. The desire to compare own’s own incomes and resources with that of others is the basis of envy. In game theoretical settings, envy is described by a psychological component, in addition to the monetary payoff function. We find that envy leads to a phase transition in societies of competing agents. Below the transition, most agents play pure strategies which follow from occupying the most yielding options. When approaching the transition, an increasing number of agents play mixed strategies, which eventually merge to a single encompassing mixed strategy played by a large number of agents, the lower class. All the while, upper-class agents continue to play high-rewarding pure strategies. Considering the Ultimatum game with envy, we estimate the strength of human envy from the respective laboratory results. One finds that envy is strongly relevant for humans societies.

C. Gros, “Collective strategy condensation: When envy splits societies”, Entropy 23, 157 (2021).

C. Gros, “Self induced class stratification in competitive societies of agents: Nash stability in the presence of envy”, Royal Society Open Science 7, 200411 (2020).