How Culture Influences Individual Behavior During a Pandemic: A Social Simulation of the COVID-19 Crisis

Since its first appearance in Wuhan (China), countries have been employing, to varying degrees of success, a series of non-pharmaceutical interventions aimed at limiting the spread of SARS-CoV-2 within their populations. In this article, we build on scientific work that demonstrates that culture is part of the explanation for the observed...

Towards Agent-Based Models of Rumours in Organizations: A Social Practice Theory Approach

Rumour is a collective emergent phenomenon with a potential for provoking a crisis. Modelling approaches have been deployed since five decades ago; however, the focus was mostly on epidemic behaviour of the rumours which does not take into account the differences between agents. We use social practice theory to model agent decision-making in...

Integrating Social Practice Theory in Agent-Based Models: A Review of Theories and Agents

Evidence-driven agent-based modeling plays a useful part in understanding social phenomena. By integrating social-cognitive theories in our agent models, we bear evidence from social and psychological studies on our models for human decision-making. Social practice theory (SPT) provides a socio-cognitive theory that emphasizes three...

Querying social practices in hospital context

Understanding the social contexts in which actions and interactions take place is of utmost importance for planning one’s goals and activities. People use social practices as means to make sense of their environment, assessing how that context relates to past, common experiences, culture and capabilities. Social practices can therefore...

MAIA: A framework for developing agent-based social simulations

User Validation of an Empathic Virtual Buddy against Cyberbullying

People are able to comfort others by talking about their problems. In our research, we are exploring whether computers can provide social support in a similar manner. Recently, we proposed a design for an empathic virtual buddy that supports victims of cyberbullying. To validate our approach in providing social support and to gather feedback...