Editing Social dynamics (section)

== Overview ==
The field of social dynamics brings together ideas from [[economics]], [[sociology]], [[social psychology]], and other disciplines, and is a sub-field of [[complex adaptive system]]s or [[complexity science]]. The fundamental assumption of the field is that individuals are influenced by one another's behavior.  The field is closely related to [[system dynamics]].  Like system dynamics, social dynamics is concerned with changes over time and emphasizes the role of feedbacks.  However, in social dynamics individual choices and interactions are typically viewed as the source of aggregate level behavior, while system dynamics posits that the structure of feedbacks and accumulations are responsible for system level dynamics.<ref>{{cite book|last=Sterman|first=John|title=Business Dynamics|year=2000|publisher=McGraw Hill|isbn=0-07-231135-5|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/businessdynamics0000ster}}</ref>  Research in the field typically takes a behavioral approach, assuming that individuals are [[Bounded rationality|boundedly rational]] and act on local information.  Mathematical and computational modeling are important tools for studying social dynamics. This field grew out of work done in the 1940s by [[Game theory|game theorists]] such as Duncan & Luce, and even earlier works by mathematician [[Armand Borel]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Luce|first=Duncan|title=Games and Decisions|url=https://archive.org/details/gamesdecisions00rdun|url-access=registration|year=1957|publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Inc.|isbn= 0486659437}}</ref> Because social dynamics focuses on individual level behavior, and recognizes the importance of heterogeneity across individuals, strict analytic results are often impossible.  Instead, approximation techniques, such as [[mean-field theory|mean-field approximations]] from [[statistical physics]], or [[computer simulation]]s are used to understand the behaviors of the system.  In contrast to more traditional approaches in economics, scholars of social dynamics are often interested in non-equilibrium, or dynamic, behavior.<ref name=durlauf>{{cite book|last1=Durlauf|first1=Steven|last2=Young|first2=Peyton|title=Social Dynamics|year=2001|publisher=MIT Press|location=Cambridge, MA|isbn=0-262-04186-3}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Brookings Institution, Center for Social Dynamics and Policy|url=http://www.brookings.edu/about/centers/dynamics|access-date=29 September 2012}}</ref>   That is, behavior that changes over time.