convention: a standalone construct

A regularity in the behavior of a group that everyone keeps to because everyone expects everyone else to keep to it, so it solves a recurring problem of coordination such as which side of the road to drive on. David Lewis's 1969 Convention: A Philosophical Study analysed a convention as a self-sustaining pattern in a situation where people share an interest in all acting alike but do not care which pattern they settle on, held in place by mutual expectation rather than by any law or command. The referent here is an unwritten behavioral regularity that a group polices only through shared expectation, not a signed treaty between states, an agreed choice of symbols in mathematics, or a large gathering of people.[1]

Unit

One self-sustaining behavioral regularity that solves a coordination problem for a group

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Studied through game-theoretic models of coordination and through observation of stable behavioral patterns and the expectations that support them