Hairy Heel Warts: Fads and Fashions

Asymmetric Effects of Fashions on the Formation and Dissolution of Networks: Board Interlocks with Internet Companies, 1996-2006

This paper extends the contextual perspective of network evolution to account for a more complete process of network evolution by showing that the impacts of fads and fashions on the formation and dissolution of interorganizational networks are asymmetric. Building on contact theory, this paper proposes that direct contact affords a flow of knowledge that counters tendencies to social conformit...

Management Techniques : Transient Fads or Trending Fashions ?

A model of fads, fashions, and group formation

I develop a model of consumer behavior where agents purchase goods in order to signify personal characteristics. Agents purchase goods in order to imitate agents similar to them and agents they want to emulate. Depending on parameter values of consumer preferences the model generates stable groups, fads and fashion cycles, or a mixture of both. The model is unique to the economic literature on ...

Exploring the landscape of modern academic psychology: finding and filling the holes.

Like any other domain of human activity, psychology has its fads and fashions. One consequence of fads is an overconcentration of resources on specific problems or approaches, which leaves other important problems or approaches (holes) underappreciated and understudied. This article is primarily about different factors (such as negativity bias, polarization of positions, focus on internal cause...

The Effect of Selection Bias in Studies of Fads and Fashions

Most studies of fashion and fads focus on objects and practices that once were popular. We argue that limiting the sample to such trajectories generates a selection bias that obscures the underlying process and generates biased estimates. Through simulations and the analysis of a data set that has previously not been used to analyze the rise and fall of cultural practices, the New York Times te...