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Pessimism Traps and Algorithmic Interventions

Authors: Avrim Blum, Emily Diana, Kavya Ravichandran, and Alexander Tolbert

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 329, 6th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2025)


Abstract
In this paper, we relate the philosophical literature on pessimism traps to information cascades, a formal model derived from the economics and mathematics literature. A pessimism trap is a social pattern in which individuals in a community, in situations of uncertainty, copy the sub-optimal actions of others, despite their individual beliefs. This maps nicely onto the concept of an information cascade, which involves a sequence of agents making a decision between two alternatives, with a private signal of the superior alternative and a public history of others' actions. Key results from the economics literature show that information cascades occur with probability one in many contexts, and depending on the strength of the signal, populations can fall into the incorrect cascade very easily and quickly. Once formed, in the absence of external perturbation, a cascade cannot be broken - therefore, we derive an intervention that can be used to nudge a population from an incorrect to a correct cascade and, importantly, maintain the cascade once the subsidy is discontinued. We extend this to the case of multiple communities, each of which might have a different optimal action, and a government providing subsidies that cannot discriminate between communities and does not know which action is optimal for each. We study this both theoretically and empirically.

Cite as

Avrim Blum, Emily Diana, Kavya Ravichandran, and Alexander Tolbert. Pessimism Traps and Algorithmic Interventions. In 6th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 329, pp. 5:1-5:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{blum_et_al:LIPIcs.FORC.2025.5,
  author =	{Blum, Avrim and Diana, Emily and Ravichandran, Kavya and Tolbert, Alexander},
  title =	{{Pessimism Traps and Algorithmic Interventions}},
  booktitle =	{6th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2025)},
  pages =	{5:1--5:19},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-367-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{329},
  editor =	{Bun, Mark},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2025.5},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-231321},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2025.5},
  annote =	{Keywords: Pessimism trap, opinion dynamics, algorithmic interventions, subsidy, decision-making}
}
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