International Workshop on
Regulated Agent-Based Social Systems:
Theories and Applications (RASTA'02)
Abstract for
- 13:30 - 13:50
- Activist and Radical Agents in a Multi-Agent Model of Class Norms
Robert L. Axtell and Shubha Chakravarty
Axtell et al. [2001] describe a simple model for the emergence of class norms in a heterogeneous population of agents who repeatedly play the Nash demand game. The transitions between Nash equilibria were the primary subject of study there. In particular, it was demonstrated that the expected waiting time between transitions was exponential in the size of the population, the agent memory length and the inverse noise level. Here we extend this basic model to include relatively small proportions of agents activists and radicals who have preferences over the kinds of norms that can emerge, and who act with foresight to achieve these alternative social configurations at great expense to their near-term payoffs. We demonstrate computationally that such agents can dramatically decrease the expected waiting time between transitions. These results suggest that models of social norm evolution that fail to model such agents will not yield reliable predictions concerning transition dynamics.
Daniel Moldt
Last modified: Fri Jun 21 15:54:07 CEST 2002