Convention equilibria tip rapidly once coordinated defectors reach critical mass
Evidence
His analysis of foot-binding abandonment in late Qing China — which occurred rapidly (within one to two generations in many regions) once the Natural Foot Society’s pledge associations created credible collective commitments among enough intermarrying families — demonstrated that convention equilibria can tip rapidly once a critical mass of coordinated defectors is organized. The paper’s prediction that the same mechanism should work for female genital cutting in West Africa was subsequently confirmed by Tostan’s empirical record in Senegal, creating a rare convergence between prior theoretical prediction and subsequent empirical evidence. — , The Rod and the Child, 10751
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to Cialdini’s salience theory and Durrant’s norm crystallization, plus the game-theoretic norms literature. — connects to: Catastrophic stalemate can result from momentary dominance failure rather than organic crisis
- FICTION: The Natural Foot Society pledge associations are a vivid historical image of organized collective defection worth dramatizing.