Social Reward Economies: The Dynamic Architecture of Cohesion, Polarization, Resistance, and Manipulation

Why do some social groups remain cohesive while others fragment into polarized factions? How do individuals resist dominant norms? This paper introduces the concept of social reward economies—structured systems of social feedback that determine which behaviors, beliefs, and schemas are rewarded, tolerated, or punished. We develop a formal procedural framework that models cohesion, polarization, resistance, and manipulation as emergent properties of these dynamic reward economies.We conceptualize cohesion as the alignment of behaviors around a dominant reward economy; polarization as the coexistence of competing reward economies reinforcing divergent beliefs and practices; resistance as the creation of alternative reward economies that valorize dissent; and manipulation as the strategic distortion of reward structures to engineer desired social outcomes.By integrating micro-level feedback processes with macro-level social structures, this framework complements existing theories of norms, power, and resistance through a formal model. It advances sociological understanding by demonstrating how social order, conflict, and change emerge from recursive interactions among reputation-seeking agents operating within and across competing reward economies. This perspective provides new tools for empirical research, formal modeling, and the analysis of cohesion, polarization, and manipulation in contemporary digital and organizational contexts.