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Raub and Snijders (1997) show that, under the assumption of S-shaped utility, conditions for cooperation in social dilemmas are more restrictive if outcomes represent losses than if outcomes represent gains. They neglected two interesting issues in their paper: conditions for cooperation in social dilemmas with both losses and gains as outcomes, and the effect of probability weighing on these conditions. In this paper it is shown that, under assumptions of Prospect Theory, conditions for cooperation are best if dilemmas include both positive and negative outcomes, and that these conditions improve with increasing loss aversion. Furthermore, it is shown that probability weighing can effect conditions to cooperate as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a Markov chain model of a social process, interest often centers on the distribution of the population by state. One question, the stability question, is whether this distribution converges to an equilibrium value. For an ordinary Markov chain (a chain with constant transition probabilities), complete answers are available. For an interactive Markov chain (a chain which allows the transition probabilities governing each individual to depend on the locations by state of the rest of the population), few stability results are available. This paper presents new results. Roughly, the main result is that an interactive Markov chain with unique equilibrium will be stable if the chain satisfies a certain monotonicity property. The property is a generalization to interactive Markov chains of the standard definition of monotonicity for ordinary Markov chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Caplow's model of coalitions in the triad and identifies several shortcomings. Retaining the basic structure of Caplow's arguments, it recasts the problem as one of interdependent rational decision making. The reformulation allows increased generality in several directions, including a more general notion of strength, relaxation of the additivity assumption about strength, and the adoption of probabilistic choice to allow predictions about the relative frequencies of the various coalitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]