Cultural Integration and Its Discontents

Abstract

A community's culture is defined by the preferences and equilibrium behaviors of its members. Contacts among communities alter individual cultures through two interrelated mechanisms: behavioral adaptations driven by payoffs to coordination and preference changes shaped by socialization and self-persuasion. This paper explores the workings of these mechanisms through a model of cultural integration in which preferences and behaviors vary continuously. It identifies a broad set of conditions under which cross-cultural contacts promote cultural hybridization. The analysis suggests that policies to support social integration serve to homogenize preferences across communities, thereby undermining a key objective of multiculturalism. Yielding fresh insights into strategies pursued to influence cultural trends, it also shows that communities benefit from having other communities adjust their behaviors.-1-

Melting pot or salad bowl: the formation of heterogeneous communities

“…36 One way to do this would be to combine the current framework with features of Kuran and Sandholm (2008), which allows costs of taking an action to change as actions taken change. 37 Not all immigrants remained in the US permanently (Bandiera et al, 2013).…”

“…6 In an example of this, Algan et al (2013) find an economically significant trade-off faced by Arabic parents in France between attachment to their own culture (in their study, the desire to pass on an Arabic name) with the future economic performance of their children in the form of work-related penalties to having an Arabic name. This is an important trade-off and is present in varying forms in Kuran and Sandholm (2008), Lazear (1999), Bisin et al (2011), Carvalho (2013b, and Carvalho (2013a), amongst others.…”

“…9 Kuran and Sandholm (2008) examine the convergence of cultural practices when diverse groups interact. The question we ask in this paper is different.…”

“…17 Algan et al (2013) estimate that the utility an Arabic parent in France gets from passing an Arabic name to their child is equivalent to a 3% rise in lifetime income of the child. See also Bisin and Verdier (2000) and Kuran and Sandholm (2008) for examples.…”

“…The key trade-off of the model remains in place provided coordination remains important to interaction. 21 For further discussion on the need for coordination in interaction see Lazear (1999) and Kuran and Sandholm (2008).…”