How Fear of Future Outcomes Affects Social Dynamics

Mutualistic relationships among the different species are ubiquitous in nature. To prevent mutualism from slipping into antagonism, a host often invokes a “carrot and stick” approach towards symbionts with a stabilizing effect on their symbiosis. In open human societies, a mutualistic relationship arises when a native insider population attracts outsiders with benevolent incentives in hope that the additional labor will improve the standard of all. A lingering question, however, is the extent to which insiders are willing to tolerate outsiders before mutualism slips into antagonism. To test the assertion by Karl Popper that unlimited tolerance leads to the demise of tolerance, wemodel a society under a growing incursion from the outside. Guided by their traditions of maintaining the social fabric and prizing tolerance, the insiders reduce their benevolence toward the growing subpopulation of outsiders but do not invoke punishment. This reduction of benevolence intensifies as less tolerant insiders (e.g., “radicals”) openly renounce benevolence. Although more tolerant insiders maintain some level of benevolence, they may also tacitly support radicals out of fear for the future. If radicals and their tacit supporters achieve a critical majority, herd behavior ensues and the relation between the insider and outsider subpopulations turns antagonistic. To control the risk of unwanted social dynamics, we map the parameter space within which the tolerance of insiders is in balance with the assimilation of outsiders, the tolerant insiders maintain a Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10955-016-1649-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. B Boris Podobnik [email protected] 1 Center for Polymer Studies and Department of Physics, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA 2 Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Rijeka, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia 3 Zagreb School of Economics and Management, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia 4 Center of Mathematics for Social Creativity, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-0812, Japan 5 Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Engineering Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 816-8580, Japan