The “Descriptive Norm and Fraud Dynamics” model demonstrates how fraudulent behavior can either proliferate or be contained within non-hierarchical organizations, such as peer networks, through social influence taking the form of a descriptive norm. This model expands on the fraud triangle theory, which posits that an individual must concurrently possess a financial motive, perceive an opportunity, and hold a pro-fraud attitude to engage in fraudulent activities (red agent). In the absence of any of these elements, the individual will act honestly (green agent).

The model explores variations in a descriptive norm mechanism, ranging from local distorted knowledge to global perfect knowledge. In the case of local distorted knowledge, agents primarily rely on information from their first-degree colleagues. This knowledge is often distorted because agents are slow to update their empirical expectations, which are only partially revised after one-to-one interactions. On the other end of the spectrum, local perfect knowledge is achieved by incorporating a secondary source of information into the agents’ decision-making process. Here, accurate information provided by an observer is used to update empirical expectations.

The model shows that the same variation of the descriptive norm mechanism could lead to varying aggregate fraud levels across different fraud categories. Two empirically measured norm sensitivity distributions associated with different fraud categories can be selected into the model to see the different aggregate outcomes.

The purpose of the ABRam-BG model is to study belief dynamics as a potential driver of green (growth) transitions and illustrate their dynamics in a closed, decentralized economy populated by utility maximizing agents with an environmental attitude. The model is built using the ABRam-T model (for model visit: https://doi.org/10.25937/ep45-k084) and introduces two types of capital – green (low carbon intensity) and brown (high carbon intensity) – with their respective technological progress levels. ABRam-BG simulates a green transition as an emergent phenomenon resulting from well-known opinion dynamics along the economic process.

This is an extended replication of Abelson’s and Bernstein’s early computer simulation model of community referendum controversies which was originally published in 1963 and often cited, but seldom analysed in detail. This replication is in NetLogo 6.3.0, accompanied with an ODD+D protocol and class and sequence diagrams.

This replication replaces the original scales for attitude position and interest in the referendum issue which were distributed between 0 and 1 with values that are initialised according to a normal distribution with mean 0 and variance 1 to make simulation results easier compatible with scales derived from empirical data collected in surveys such as the European Value Study which often are derived via factor analysis or principal component analysis from the answers to sets of questions.

Another difference is that this model is not only run for Abelson’s and Bernstein’s ten week referendum campaign but for an arbitrary time in order that one can find out whether the distributions of attitude position and interest in the (still one-dimensional) issue stabilise in the long run.

The intention of this model is to create an universal basis on how to model change in value prioritizations within social simulation. This model illustrates the designing of heterogeneous populations within agent-based social simulations by equipping agents with Dynamic Value-based Cognitive Architectures (DVCA-model). The DVCA-model uses the psychological theories on values by Schwartz (2012) and character traits by McCrae and Costa (2008) to create an unique trait- and value prioritization system for each individual. Furthermore, the DVCA-model simulates the impact of both social persuasion and life-events (e.g. information, experience) on the value systems of individuals by introducing the innovative concept of perception thermometers. Perception thermometers, controlled by the character traits, operate as buffers between the internal value prioritizations of agents and their external interactions. By introducing the concept of perception thermometers, the DVCA-model allows to study the dynamics of individual value prioritizations under a variety of internal and external perturbations over extensive time periods. Possible applications are the use of the DVCA-model within artificial sociality, opinion dynamics, social learning modelling, behavior selection algorithms and social-economic modelling.

The model is intended to simulate visitor spatial and temporal dynamics, encompassing their numbers, activities, and distribution along a coastline influenced by beach landscape design. Our primary focus is understanding how the spatial distribution of services and recreational facilities (e.g., beach width, entrance location, recreational facilities, parking availability) impacts visitation density. Our focus is not on tracking the precise visitation density but rather on estimating the areas most affected by visitor activity. This comprehension allows for assessing the diverse influences of beach layouts on spatial visitor density and, consequently, on the landscape’s biophysical characteristics (e.g., vegetation, fauna, and sediment features).

An ABM of changes in individuals’ lifestyles which considers their
evolving behavioural choices. Individuals have a set of environmental behavioural traits that spread through a fixed Watts–Strogatz graph via social interactions with their neighbours. These exchanges are mediated by transmission biases informing from whom an individual learns and
how much attention is paid. The influence of individuals on each other is a function of their similarity in environmental identity, where we represent environmental identity computationally by aggregating past agent attitudes towards multiple environmentally related behaviours. To perform a behaviour, agents must both have
a sufficiently positive attitude toward a behaviour and overcome a corresponding threshold. This threshold
structure, where the desire to perform a behaviour does not equal its enactment, allows for a lack of coherence
between attitudes and actual emissions. This leads to a disconnect between what people believe and what
…

This is an extension of the original RAGE model (Dressler et al. 2018), where we add learning capabilities to agents, specifically learning-by-doing and social learning (two processes central to adaptive (co-)management).

The extension module is applied to smallholder farmers’ decision-making - here, a pasture (patch) is the private property of the household (agent) placed on it and there is no movement of the households. Households observe the state of the pasture and their neighrbours to make decisions on how many livestock to place on their pasture every year. Three new behavioural types are created (which cannot be combined with the original ones): E-RO (baseline behaviour), E-LBD (learning-by-doing) and E-RO-SL1 (social learning). Similarly to the original model, these three types can be compared regarding long-term social-ecological performance. In addition, a global strategy switching option (corresponding to double-loop learning) allows users to study how behavioural strategies diffuse in a heterogeneous population of learning and non-learning agents.

An important modification of the original model is that extension agents are heterogeneous in how they deal with uncertainty. This is represented by an agent property, called the r-parameter (household-risk-att in the code). The r-parameter is catch-all for various factors that form an agent’s disposition to act in a certain way, such as: uncertainty in the sensing (partial observability of the resource system), noise in the information received, or an inherent characteristic of the agent, for instance, their risk attitude.

Using data from the British Social Attitude Survey, we develop an agent-based model to study the effect of social influence on the spread of meat-eating behaviour in the British population.

We model the epistemic dynamics preceding political uprising. Before deciding whether to start protests, agents need to estimate the amount of discontent with the regime. This model simulates the dynamics of group knowledge about general discontent.

We model interpersonal dynamics and study behavior in the classroom in the hypothetical case of a single teacher who defines students’ seating arrangements. The model incorporates the mechanisms of peer influence on study behavior, on attitude formation, and homophilous selection in order to depict the interrelated dynamics of networks, behavior, and attitudes. We compare various seating arrangement scenarios and observe how GPA distribution and level of prejudice changes over time.