First-order transition in a model of prestige bias
One of the major benefits of belonging to a prestigious group is that it affects the way you are viewed by others. Here I use a simple mathematical model to explore the implications of this "prestige bias" when candidates undergo repeated rounds of evaluation. In the model, candidates w...
| Published in: | SciPost Physics |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
SciPost
2020-02-01
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| Online Access: | https://scipost.org/SciPostPhys.8.2.030 |
| Summary: | One of the major benefits of belonging to a prestigious group is that it
affects the way you are viewed by others. Here I use a simple mathematical
model to explore the implications of this "prestige bias" when candidates
undergo repeated rounds of evaluation. In the model, candidates who are
evaluated most highly are admitted to a "prestige class", and their membership
biases future rounds of evaluation in their favor. I use the language of
Bayesian inference to describe this bias, and show that it can lead to a
runaway effect in which the weight given to the prior expectation associated
with a candidate's class becomes stronger with each round. Most dramatically,
the strength of the prestige bias after many rounds undergoes a first-order
transition as a function of the precision of the examination on which the
evaluation is based. |
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| ISSN: | 2542-4653 |