The Psychology of Simulated Social Behavior: From Computational Agents to Worldwide Collective Action

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About this Research Topic

Submission deadlines

  1. Manuscript Submission Deadline 31 January 2025

  2. This Research Topic is still accepting articles.

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Background

Social simulation models are often regarded as simplistic models that are away from human behavioral reality. This is also the main reason behind a reluctancy about their adoption for large scale modeling and policy making, although concerted efforts do exist.

In this topic, we welcome submissions that challenge this view of psycho-social models by tackling the presumed limitations in psychological reality and its representation in the models. We also welcome submissions that show how fairly simple psychological factors or forces may be invited to account for proper response to worldwide challenges.

On the one hand, potential cognitive/psychological modelling targets, that may allow to enhance current models of social behaviour, may concern fundamental factors and processes (such as anxiety, memory constraints, effects of context on the understanding of shared intentions, perception of ingroup-outgroup relations etc.), emotional components and behaviours (such as emotional consistency, build-up and regulation of mood, social contagion etc.), broader cultural-behavioural mechanisms (such as context-dependent social learning, perception of cultural similarities or differences, cultural fluidity and overloading etc.). Last but not least, modeling may concern the self-organization (or emergence, or bottom-up causation) of social patterns (such as social movements, wars, hypes, revolutions). Simple, abstract models grounded in psychological and cognitive science literature may be sufficient to represent actual human decision making in many social environments (for example, a ‘follow the majority’ rule).

On the other hand, as major challenges for humanity are building up, it appears that they are the outcome of dysfunction of our sociality rather than of our intelligence. The ecological impact that we have in the Anthropocene is not matched by our powers of collective action. We find ourselves incapable of taking adequate action on climate and biodiversity issues. This is exacerbated because of war and conflicts. Mass migration, caused by the combination of these factors, may worsen our predicament. All these are the results of natural human decisions that may be modeled and tuned by psychological probes in scenarios that support all kinds of human social action, ranging from care, to education, to socio-ecological systems. These models and scenarios have the power to promote a better understanding of the potential benefits or the side-effects of new technologies or policies.

We welcome approaches anywhere between these two ends. Some approaches may study a particular micro behavior or relation with a broad application area, for example the range of responses to leadership, while others may model the effects of a large scale macro intervention based on a specific feature, for example empathy building to induce solidarity. Any intermediate or composite idea will be appreciated as well. All article types which are suitable for the journal are welcomed.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

  • Brief Research Report
  • Case Report
  • Clinical Trial
  • Community Case Study
  • Conceptual Analysis
  • Data Report
  • Editorial
  • General Commentary
  • Hypothesis and Theory

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

  • Brief Research Report
  • Case Report
  • Clinical Trial
  • Community Case Study
  • Conceptual Analysis
  • Data Report
  • Editorial
  • General Commentary
  • Hypothesis and Theory
  • Methods
  • Mini Review
  • Opinion
  • Original Research
  • Perspective
  • Policy and Practice Reviews
  • Policy Brief
  • Registered Report
  • Review
  • Systematic Review
  • Technology and Code

Keywords: Sociality, Decision-making, Culture, Social identity, Cooperation, Conflict

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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Manuscripts can be submitted to this Research Topic via the main journal or any other participating journal.

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