Mental Exercise 6

1. Propose one social science research question that can hardly be answered by empirical data alone but can be potentially answered by the results of some simulations. Explain why the problem is empirically hard to study in the first place and why a simulation study could help generate unique insight. Try to briefly sketch a research design if you can. How would you model the agents?  Given the complexity of the problem, why do you think that your simulations can reasonably approximate reality? Or, do you believe that even if they can’t, you can still learn a good deal from them? 
2. Compare and contrast DellaPosta et al. (2015) and Goldberg & Stein (2018). What are the common theoretial/empirical puzzles that these two studies both try to address? Why can’t the problem be easily answered by am empirical study? How are the perspectives of the two papers different? How do the authors respectively model their agents to validate their theoretical hunch? In your opinion, which study better approximates reality?  After reading these two papers, what have you learned about cultural diffusion? 
3. (Optional) In a later article, DellaPosta and his coauthor challenged some of the modeling specifications of Goldberg & Stein. And Goldberg defended their model in a rebuttal. American Sociological Review published the challenge and defense on the same issue. Read their articles if you want to figure out what exactly they were debating about. What do you learn from this debate?

Further readings:

• DellaPosta, D., & Davoodi, M. (2021). The Complexity of Associative Diffusion: Reassessing the Relationship between Network Structure and Cultural Variation. American Sociological Review, 86(6), 1193–1204.
• Goldberg, A. (2021). Associative Diffusion and the Pitfalls of Structural Reductionism. American Sociological Review, 86(6), 1205–1210.