NON-LINEAR PROCESSES

• Much human behaviour isn’t a smooth continuum, it is either/or. I either do or don’t go to the local hospital, I don’t half-go. And if that hospital is dependent on the number of patients for its funding then that do-you-don’t-you process needs to be understood.
• Worse, the probability that I will go increases (thanks to positive feedback) according to how many other people go (because then it acquires a good reputation, has greater resources to treat me etc.)
• This means the probability that I will go increases exponentially at each stage of this either/or process. Simple balance models don’t work.