Loops in Social Dynamics

This chapter is devoted to presenting a general view of social dynamics, in which our model of norm emergence is framed, as a multilevel and multidirectional process. Usually, only the upward direction of social dynamics, named emergence, is investigated, whilst the downward process, i.e., the feedback from the emergent macroscopic effects on the producing systems, is often overlooked. In this chapter, different processes of downward causation is distinguished according to the level of complexity of the respective dynamics. In particular, the process of immergence is focused on. Immergence is defined as a process of downward causation by means of which emerging social phenomena, entities, or properties of entities "feed back" to the producing systems, modifying some of their internal properties and processes. By means of these properties or processes of the producing systems, the probability dramatically increases that the emergent phenomena will be replicated in the future.