A model for simulating the evolution of individual’s preferences, incliding adaptive agents “falsifying” -as public opinions- their own preferences. It was builded to describe, explore, experiment and understand how simple heuristics can modulate global opinion dynamics. So far two mechanisms are implemented: a version of Festiguer’s reduction of cognitive disonance, and a version of Goffman’s impression management. In certain social contexts -minority, social rank presure- some models agents can “fake” its public opinion while keeping internally the oposite preference, but after a number of rounds following this falsifying behaviour pattern, a coherence principle can change the real or internal preferences close to that expressed in public.

This model accompanies a paper looking at the role and limits of values and norms for modeling realistic social agents. Based on literature we synthesize a theory on norms and a theory that combines both values and norms. In contrast to previous work, these theories are checked against data on human behavior obtained from a psychological experiment on dividing money: the ultimatum game. We found that agents that act according to a theory that combines both values and norms, produce behavior quite similar to that of humans. Furthermore, we found that this theory is more realistic than theories solely concerned with norms or theories solely concerned with values. However, to explain the amount of money people accept in this ultimatum game we will eventually need an even more realistic theory. We propose that a theory that explains when people exactly choose to use norms instead of values could provide this realism.

Dawkins’ Weasel is a NetLogo model that illustrates the principle of evolution by natural selection. It is inspired by a thought experiment presented by Richard Dawkins in his book The Blind Watchmaker (1996).

This model includes an innovation search environment. Agents search and can share their findings. It’s implemented in Netlogo-Hubnet & a parallel Netlogo model. This allows for validation of search strategies against experimental findings.

The model represents empirically observed recycling behaviour of Chinese citizens, based on the theory of reasoned action (TRA), the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and the theory of planned behaviour extended with situational factors (TPB+).

a computer-based role-playing game simulating the interactions between farming activities, livestock herding and wildlife in a virtual landscape reproducing local socioecological dynamics at the periphery of Hwange National Park (Zimbabwe).

A haystack-style model of group selection to capture the essential features of colony foundation for queens of the ant based on observation of the ant Pogonomyrmex californicus.

A computational model of a classic small group study by Alex Bavelas. This computational model was designed to explore the difficulty in translating a seemingly simple real-world experiment into a computational model.

This is based off my previous Profiler tutorial model, but with an added tutorial on converting it into a model usable with BehaviorSpace, and creating a BehaviorSpace experiment.

Positive feedback can lead to “trapping” in local optima. Adding a simple negative feedback effect, based on ant behaviour, prevents this trapping