Paper Info
Title
A Software Architecture for Mechanism-Based Social Systems Modelling in Agent-Based Simulation Models.
Abstract
This paper introduces the MBSSM (Mechanism-Based Social Systems Modelling) software architecture that is designed for expressing mechanisms of social theories with individual behaviour components in a unified way and implementing these mechanisms in an agent-based simulation model. The MBSSM architecture is based on a middle-range theory approach most recently expounded by analytical sociology and is designed in the object-oriented programming paradigm with Unified Modelling Language diagrams. This paper presents two worked examples of using the architecture for modelling individual behaviour mechanisms that give rise to the dynamics of population-level alcohol use: a single-theory model of norm theory and a multi-theory model that combines norm theory with role theory. The MBSSM architecture provides a computational environment within which theories based on social mechanisms can be represented, compared, and integrated. The architecture plays a fundamental enabling role within a wider simulation model-based framework of abductive reasoning in which families of theories are tested for their ability to explain concrete social phenomena.
Year
DOI
Venue
2020
10.18564/jasss.4282
JASSS-THE JOURNAL OF ARTIFICIAL SOCIETIES AND SOCIAL SIMULATION
Keywords
DocType
Volume
Agent-Based Modelling,Social Simulation,Software Architecture,Analytical Sociology,Abductive Reasoning
Journal
23
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
3
1460-7425
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
0
9
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Tuong Manh Vu100.34
Charlotte Probst200.68
Alexandra Nielsen300.34
Hao Bai400.34
Petra Meier500.34
Charlotte Buckley600.34
Mark Strong701.01
Alan Brennan811.74
Robin C. Purshouse962830.00