Keeping Conceptual Boundaries Distinct Between Decision Making and Learning Is Necessary to Understand Social Influence

Authors: Gaël Le Mens

The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Vol. 37, No 1, 87-88, February, 2014

Bentley et al. make the deliberate choice to blur the distinction between learning and decision making. This obscures the social influence mechanisms that operate in the various empirical settings that their map aims to categorize. Useful policy prescriptions, however, require an accurate understanding of the social influence mechanisms that underlie the dynamics of popularity.