Equilibria of culture contact derived from ingroup and outgroup attitudes

Abstract

Modern societies feature an increasing contact between cultures, yet we have a poor understanding of what the outcomes might be. Here we consider a mathematical model of contact between social groups, grounded in social psychology and analyzed using tools from statistical physics. We use the model to study how a culture might be affected by immigration. We find that in some cases residents' culture is relatively unchanged, but in other cases residents may adopt the opinions and beliefs of immigrants. The decisive factors are each group's cultural legacy and its attitudes towards in- and out-groups. The model can also predict how social policies may influence the outcome of culture contact.