The human brain,social conformity,and presidential elections

This paper investigates aggregate voting behavior in American presidential elections from 1904 to 1980; the state is unit of analysis. We abandon the traditional assumption that voting is a rational process and instead construct a model to test the power of social conformity over voting decisions. The model, which uses the entropy measure of statistical information theory, allows specific numerical tests of its validity and, additionally, reveals unexpected dynamic patterns in voting behavior. We find four distinct processes related to social conformity that affect voter turnout and the distribution of votes among presidential candidates. A mathematical model for each process is identified and parameters are estimated from election data.     

A connectionist model of the organizational learning curve

Organizational learning can be understood as a spontaneous development of routines. Mathematically, this process can be described as a search for better paths on a graph whose nodes are humans and machines. Since the rules for connecting nodes depend on their ability to process goods, the slope of the learning curve may be connected to physical and psychological properties. Two suggestive examples are discussed. Guido Fioretti, born 1964, graduated in Electronic Engineering and obtained a PhD in Economics from the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. He is currently an assistant professor at the University of Bologna, Italy.His research interests span from decision theory to economics and organization science. In particular, he is interested in linking structural development to cognitive processes. The present article has been conceived as a theoretical underpinning of agent-based simulations of organizations. In particular, future applications of the Java Enterprise Simulator () may test the usefulness of the results derived herein.