Editing Information cascade (section)

===Explicit model assumptions===

The original model makes several assumptions about human behavior and the world in which humans act,<ref name="Bik">{{cite journal |last1=Bikhchandani |first1=Sushil |last2=Hirshleifer |first2=David |last3=Welch |first3=Ivo |title=A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change as Informational Cascades |journal=Journal of Political Economy |date=October 1992 |volume=100 |issue=5 |pages=992–1026 |doi=10.1086/261849 |s2cid=7784814 |url=http://www.dklevine.com/archive/refs41193.pdf }}</ref> some of which are relaxed in later versions<ref name="Easley"/> or in alternate definitions of similar problems, such as the [[diffusion of innovations]]. 
 
#[[Bounded rationality|Boundedly Rational]] Agents: The original Independent Cascade model assumes humans are boundedly rational<ref name=newellsimon>{{cite book|last=Newell|first=A.|title=Human problem solving|url=https://archive.org/details/humanproblemsolv0000newe|url-access=registration|year=1972|publisher=Prentice Hall|location=Englewood Cliffs, NY|isbn=9780134454030 }}</ref> – that is, they will always make rational decisions based on the information they can observe, but the information they observe may not be complete or correct.  In other words, agents do not have complete knowledge of the world around them (which would allow them to make the correct decision in any and all situations).  In this way, there is a point at which, even if a person has correct knowledge of the idea or action cascading, they can be convinced via social pressures to adopt some alternate, incorrect view of the world.
#[[Complete information|Incomplete Knowledge]] of Others: The original information cascade model assumes that agents have incomplete knowledge of the agents which precede them in the specified order.  As opposed to definitions where agents have some knowledge of the "private information" held by previous agents, the current agent makes a decision based only on the observable action (whether or not to imitate) of those preceding him.  It is important to note that the original creators argue this is a reason why information cascades can be caused by small shocks.
#Behavior of all previous agents is known