Speaker:

Vicky Chuqiao Yang, Assistant Professor in System Dynamics, Sloan School of Management, MIT

Title:

Dynamical system models for voting and collective decisions

Abstract:

I will overview two studies using behavioral dynamical system models to study voting and collective decision-making. The first proposes a mechanism for the polarization of the US Congress despite the lack of clear evidence for voters taking more extremist policy positions. The model considers voters using the bounded-rational, satisficing decision-making---one chooses a candidate who is good enough instead of finding the best option. The model suggests that party polarization can be an outcome of increasing ideological purity within the parties without changes in the voters' policy positions. We also compare models' predictions with historical data. The second project further examines the potential disconnect between voter's preferences and the winning outcomes. It is well known that many voters in the US do not evaluate the merit of the options themselves (individual learning), but follow others (social learning). I use a dynamical model to investigate whether a majority vote system can settle on the better of two options under the presence of social learners. The model predicts a critical proportion of social learners above which either option can win the majority regardless of merit.

Speaker Bio:

Vicky Chuqiao Yang is an Assistant Professor of System Dynamics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Her work uses quantitative behavioral models, assisted by the analysis of data, to study collective human behavior on a broad range of organization levels, from teams to cities. Recent research applications include collective decision-making, political polarization, scaling laws in cities, and bureaucracy in organizations. She received her PhD in Applied Mathematics from Northwestern University and was a fellow at the Santa Fe Institute.

Location:

In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/95731218751
Passcode: NICO2023

About the Speaker Series:

Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems and data science. It brings together attendees ranging from graduate students to senior faculty who span all of the schools across Northwestern, from applied math to sociology to biology and every discipline in-between. Please visit: https://bit.ly/WedatNICO for information on future speakers.

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