Thresholds of Behavioral Flexibility in Turbulent Environments for Individual and Group Success
exhibited by a species is in some way correlated — presumably meaningfully — with the turbulence of their environment , this suggests that being more flexible than one needs to be may be unnecessary . However , what if a previously static environment suddenly becomes turbulent ? Institutions are not species — we can deliberately engineer them in a way that a species , whose behavioral diversity may rely on the much slower and more reactive process of evolution , cannot . On the other hand , an institution or actor who is both capable of and willing to change strategies cannot do so without making tradeoffs , including trading off with the opportunity cost of not choosing the right strategy , with the risk of not getting “ better ” at any particular strategy , or of actually just incurring the cost of changing strategy .
It is generally this third tradeoff — the costliness of change — that is the reason stability might be valued in biological and social systems . Regardless of whether a new strategy would be superior , it costs time and resources for both a firm and an individual to develop with and implement a new strategy for responding to new market circumstances . The literature on heuristics also supports this idea — learning a new behavior requires not just learning something new , but also unlearning what might now be an automated response . With respect to the flexibility of species , the same tradeoff holds — whether it is through behavioral modification or genetic mutation — change is both risky and costly . Not all mutations are beneficial : mutation may make it worse off , not better . Moreover , one may never be able to get back to where one started .
This overview suggests that when it comes to the relationship between actor flexibility ( strategic / behavioral or characteristic / genetic ) and the environment , they should match . In constant environments , actors should be less flexible . Flexibility is costly , and if they are doing well enough ( more on this in a moment ), then there is no need to incur the cost or risk of change . If the environment is turbulent , however , then actors should have some flexibility in their strategies , or the species should be capable of changing over time . The environment itself includes the physical , exogenously given characteristics , and the flexibility of other actors ( predators , firms , single men , or women ) in that system . In order to understand the fate of a particular individual in an environment , these endogenous factors are at least as important as the exogenous ones .
Below I present an agent-based model that evaluates this relationship between actor ( agent ) flexibility and environmental dynamics . I consider both exogenous ( modeled as topological ) environmental turbulence and environmental dynamics that arise because of the changing behavior of other agents in the system . In the model , two types of agents attempt to spread themselves according to contrary agendas across a lattice . In the control case , the environment — the lattice — is constant , and agents are restricted to remaining whatever type they are initially assigned . In subsequent trials I allow the environment to change , then I allow the actors to change types , and then I allow both the environment and actor types to change . At the center of the model is a threshold : actors change types not just with
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