The propensity for disobedience: Rule-breaking, compliance and social phase transitions

2026-03-10

AI Summary

This study investigates the mechanisms underlying the persistence of social norm violations and the collective transitions between compliant and non-compliant states. By constructing an evolutionary game-theoretic model based on replicator dynamics, the authors incorporate a utility function that accounts for individual payoffs, institutional punishment, and social sanctions. Integrating phase transition theory with numerical simulations, they reveal how positive and negative social feedback shape collective behavioral shifts. The analysis demonstrates that positive feedback induces bistability and abrupt transitions, whereas negative feedback leads to continuous, gradual change. Furthermore, the study quantifies the impacts of enforcement intensity, societal tolerance, and payoff perception on collective behavior, identifying critical thresholds for intervention and highlighting the fragility of social order under weak institutional frameworks.

Technology Category

• Game Theory and Economic Paradigms: Behavioral Game Theory
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Social Cognition And Interaction
• Multiagent Systems: Mechanism Design

Application Category

• Social Networks and Social Media: Media and governance, opinion dynamics, filter bubbles, polarization
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Social networks and social learning
• Responsible Web: Social and technical mechanisms of refusal for web technologies and applications

Abstract

We develop a mathematical model to describe the persistence of rule-breaking behaviors in societies, such as traffic violations, disregard for legal restrictions and other forms of noncompliance. Using a replicator-type dynamics with utility functions incorporating individual benefits, institutional punishment and social sanctions, we first built a general formulation of the system. Within this framework, we analyze two distinct models differing in the nature of social feedback. In the presence of positive feedback, the system exhibits bistability, with widespread compliance and widespread violation as stable equilibria, and the transition between these states occurs discontinuously once a critical threshold is crossed, resembling a first-order phase transition. By contrast, when negative feedback is present, the population undergoes a continuous phase transition between compliant and noncompliant collective states, driven by an increasing collective cost of rule-breaking. Numerical simulations and analytical results illustrate how changes in enforcement, social tolerance or perceived benefits can shift the system across tipping points. The results provide a theoretical explanation for the fragility of social order under weak institutions and highlight possible pathways to promote compliance.

Problem

• rule-breaking
• compliance
• social phase transitions
• noncompliance
• bistability

Innovation

• replicator dynamics
• phase transition
• social feedback
• compliance
• rule-breaking