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Context in social simulation: why it can’t be wished away

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  • Bruce Edmonds

    (Manchester Metropolitan University)

Abstract

Context is everywhere in the human social and cognitive spheres but it is often implicit and unnoticed. However, when one is involved in trying to understand and model the social and cognitive realms context becomes an important factor. This paper is an analysis of the role and effects of context on social simulation and a call for it to be squarely faced by the social simulation community. It briefly looks at some different kinds of context, and discussed the difficulty of talking about context, before looking at the “context heuristic” that seems to be used in human cognition. This allows for rich and fuzzy context recognition to be combined with crisp ‘foreground’ belief update and reasoning. Such a heuristic allows for causality to make sense, and limits the phenomena of causal spread—it is thus at the root of the modelling enterprise. This analysis is then applied to simulation modelling, considering the context of a simulation, and its ramifications, in particular, why generalisation is so hard.

Suggested Citation

  • Bruce Edmonds, 2012. "Context in social simulation: why it can’t be wished away," Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 5-21, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:comaot:v:18:y:2012:i:1:d:10.1007_s10588-011-9100-z
    DOI: 10.1007/s10588-011-9100-z
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Andreas Schlosser & Marco Voss & Lars Brückner, 2005. "On the Simulation of Global Reputation Systems," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 9(1), pages 1-4.
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    3. Bruce Edmonds, 2010. "Bootstrapping Knowledge About Social Phenomena Using Simulation Models," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 13(1), pages 1-8.
    4. Dmytro Tykhonov & Catholijn Jonker & Sebastiaan Meijer & Tim Verwaart, 2008. "Agent-Based Simulation of the Trust and Tracing Game for Supply Chains and Networks," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 11(3), pages 1-1.
    5. Schelling, Thomas C, 1969. "Models of Segregation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(2), pages 488-493, May.
    6. Elliott, Catherine S. & Hayward, Donald M., 1998. "The expanding definition of framing and its particular impact on economic experimentation," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 229-243.
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    Cited by:

    1. Bruce Edmonds, 2015. "A Context- and Scope-Sensitive Analysis of Narrative Data to Aid the Specification of Agent Behaviour," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 18(1), pages 1-17.
    2. Matthias Meyer & Klaus G. Troitzsch, 2012. "Epistemological perspectives on simulation: overview and introduction," Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 1-4, March.
    3. Malawska, Anna & Topping, Christopher John, 2016. "Evaluating the role of behavioral factors and practical constraints in the performance of an agent-based model of farmer decision making," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 136-146.

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