“Real life isn’t a series of interconnected events occurring one after another like beads strung on a necklace. Life is actually a series of encounters in which one event may change those that follow in a wholly unpredictable, even devastating way.”
— Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
Economist Thomas C. Schelling explores this idea through his dynamic model of segregation, one of the earliest examples of agent-based modelling in the social sciences (Hatna & Benenson, 2012).
The parameters are simple. We simulate a neighbourhood with two groups of individuals, represented by blue and orange cells. Grey cells represent empty spaces. Individuals are initially distributed randomly, but move whenever fewer than half their neighbours are the same colour as them (Schelling, 1971).
In my simulation of the model (see below), every individual is simply trying not to be in the minority. But over time, large-scale segregation sets in, and homogeneity climbs well past the 50% target each individual was aiming for, approaching 90%. The neighbourhood becomes far more divided than any one individual ever wanted or intended.
Schelling’s models have been cited in over a thousand different scientific publications investigating segregation in urban settings (Ubarevičienė et al., 2024). But his work also highlights a deeper truth: that the macro behaviour of complex human systems often diverges from the intentions of any one individual composing it. Small interactions compound; slight preferences can become entrenched and resist change; emergent properties appear that aren’t easily explained by the sum of any parts.
Emergent properties such as these often act as a powerful source of innovation. When groups of humans work together, our intelligence compounds, and we become smarter than any one individual. Societies that become disconnected can even lose technology they once had, despite no loss of intelligence among individual members (Henrich, 2016). But when harnessed incorrectly, these same emergent properties can also lead a group astray.
In his writings on the Abilene Paradox, management theorist Jerry Harvey describes how organizations can arrive at decisions that each individual privately believes to be wrong (Harvey, 1974). And research on the bystander effect shows that groups may fail to act in the face of an obvious problem because they incorrectly assume that those around them do not see it as a problem (Sargent & Newman, 2021). In group settings, even fully-aligned intentions are often not a guarantee of positive outcomes.
So, what does it mean to talk about the opinions, values, and goals of an organisation? And how do we make sure that those actually lead to the outcomes that we want?
References
Crichton, M. (1990). Jurassic Park. Alfred A. Knopf.
Harvey, J. B. (1974). The Abilene paradox: The management of agreement. Organizational Dynamics, 3(1), 63–80. https://doi.org/10.1016/0090-2616(74)90005-9
Hatna, E., & Benenson, I. (2012). The Schelling model of ethnic residential dynamics: Beyond the integrated–segregated dichotomy of patterns. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 15(1), Article 6. https://doi.org/10.18564/jasss.1873
Henrich, J. (2016). The secret of our success: How culture is driving human evolution, domesticating our species, and making us smarter. Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvc77f0d
Sargent, R. H., & Newman, L. S. (2021). Pluralistic ignorance research in psychology: A scoping review of topic and method variation and directions for future research. Review of General Psychology, 25(2), 163–184. https://doi.org/10.1177/1089268021995168
Schelling, T. C. (1971). Dynamic models of segregation. The Journal of Mathematical Sociology, 1(2), 143–186. https://doi.org/10.1080/0022250X.1971.9989794
Ubarevičienė, R., van Ham, M., & Tammaru, T. (2024). Fifty years after the Schelling’s models of segregation: Bibliometric analysis of the legacy of Schelling and the future directions of segregation research. Cities, 147, Article 104838. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2024.104838
Supplementary material
All code for my simulation can be found at
https://github.com/cicilapetitesorciere/schelling-segregation