SIMULATION

http://sim.sagepub.com/ A Tool for Simulated Social Experiments

Miklos N. Szilagyi and Zoltan C. Szilagyi SIMULATION 2000 74: 4 DOI: 10.1177/003754970007400101 The online version of this article can be found at: http://sim.sagepub.com/content/74/1/4

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TECHNICAL ARTICLE

A Tool for Simulated Social

Experiments
Zoltan C.

Miklos N.

Szilagyi

Szilagyi

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Arizona

Tucson, Arizona, USA

Department of Computer Science University of Arizona

Tucson, Arizona, USA

A new agent-based model is presented of the investigation of collective behavior with a large number of decision makers operating in a stochastic environment. (An agent is an entity that interacts with and contributes
1.

Introduction

of agents can be a simplified representation of a society.) The model has three distinctive new features: the number of agents in the model is theoretically unlimited; the agents have various distinct user-defined "personalities;" and the agents are described as combinations of cellular and stochastic learning automata. The combination of different personalities with stochastic learning makes it possible to simulate humanlike behavior in social situations when each group member must choose between maximizing selfish interests or collective interests. Our model is a framework to perform various simulated social experiments and assess the propagation of information and human influence in large-scale conflicting environments, e.g., to simulate realistic multi-person social dilemmas. We have developed a computational tool to implement this model. This is a powerful tool for investigating group dynamics that is also an advance in nonlinear dynamic system simulation. It may lead to the discovery of a number of factors influencing human collective behavior.

to its environment. A set

Large-scale networks such as the Internet are relating people and systems to one another than ever before. When a large number of participants interact, strange things can happen: knowledge can multiply, teams can work effectively, riots can break out spontaneously (as at rock concerts and soccer games). We
more

must understand what governs the behavior of such large groups. One of the critical events is the choice each individual makes whether to optimize his personal gain in competition with others or to work co-

is faced

operatively for the common good of all. This decision frequently, and the resulting choices collecaffect the welfare of large groups of people. tively

Keywords: Social dilemma, cellular automaton, stochastic learning, social simulation, agent-based model, behavioral simulation

We will consider social situations where each participant has two choices: to cooperate with the others, or to defect (seek personal gain only). In our model, participants in the society are represented as agents. An agent is a simple entity that interacts with and contributes to its environment. The payoff (reward or punishment) to each agent depends on its choice, on the choices of its neighbors, and also on the properties of the environment. The total payoff to the entire group is the sum of all individual payoffs. Such a multi-agent, two-choice situation is a social dilemma if there is a temptation to defect. It is a situation in which each member of a group must choose between maximizing selfish interests or collective interests. A social dilemma is a conflict between egoism and the common good

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[1-4]. As Aristotle put it: &dquo;Men pay most attention to what is their own: they care less for what is common.&dquo; The main goal of our work reported in this paper is to create a model of this kind of group dynamics and design a simulation tool based on the model to investigate these group dynamics. Social dilemmas can be treated in terms of mathematical formulations of the degree of cooperation in human society in the form of stochastic nonlinear dynamic systems that can be used to examine a large number of social problems such as pollution, over-

of decision makers
ment.

operating in a stochastic environnew

The model has three distinctive

1. It is
a

features:

general framework for inquiry in which the properties of the environment as well as those of
the agents are user-defined parameters and the number of agents is theoretically unlimited.

2. The

agents have various distinct, user-defined

population, or resource depletion. Formal models have been proposed to simulate collective phenomena [5]. These models contributed to the development of critical mass theory that emphasizes the role of participants who act differently from typical group members. Some of the models include computer simulation of collective phenomena. Computer simulation can assume the role of costly experiments in complex interconnected social systems. The vast majority of published results, however, are devoted to two-agent games only, especially to the twoagent iterated Prisoners Dilemma game [6]. Papers on computer simulation of larger societies have started to appear only recently. The effects of alternative strategies on achieving consensus for action were simulated by Feinberg and A stochastic learning model was developed Johnson [7]. by Macy [8] to explain critical states where threshold effects may cause shifting the system from a defective equilibrium to a cooperative one. A computer simulation of temporary gatherings was presented by McPhail
used a thermomodel to investigate outbreaks of cooperadynamical tion in a social system. Nowak and May [11] and Lloyd [12] wrote simple computer programs that demonstrate the dynamics of deterministic social behavior based on pair-wise interactions between the participants. Epstein and Axtell [13] demonstrated that it is possible to build complex artificial societies based on
et al.

3.

&dquo;personalities.&dquo; The combination of these personalities with stochastic learning makes it possible to simulate human-like behavior that is generally unpredictable, but some predictions are possible if one knows the agents personality. The participating agents are described as stochastic learning cellular automata, i.e., as combinations of cellular automata and stochastic learning automata.
The cellular automaton format describes the environment in which agents interact. It is flexible enough to accommodate a wide variety of assumptions about local rules of interactions between the agents. Stochastic learning rules provide more powerful and realistic results than the deterministic rules usually used in cellular automata. Stochastic learning means that behavior is not determined, but only shaped by its consequences, i.e., some action of the agent will be more probable but still not certain after a favorable response from the environment. This is closer to the way humans react than a deterministic model.

[9]. Glance and Huberman [10]

simple participating agents. The goal of our model is to investigate collective behavior for the case of social dilemmas with a large number of decision-makers operating in a stochastic environment. This model may lead to the discovery of a number of factors influencing human behavior under such circumstances. Even if the rules of behavior have unstable effects on individual participants, expectations can be predicted on a large scale of participants. Furthermore, we are interested in the fundamental problem of information and human influence propagation in large-scale environments. Further applications can be found in areas as diverse as economics, evolutionary biology, sociology, and management. 2.

The Model

We have

developed an agent-based model for the investigation of collective behavior with a large number

A cellular automaton [14] is a discrete dynamic unit whose behavior is specified in a simple way in terms of its local relation to the behavior of its neighbors, i.e., the behavior of each unit depends on its own and its neighbors states. A good example is the Game of Life [15] that shows enormous complexity on the collective level generated by trivial rules for the participating units. The cellular automaton approach is gaining popularity for the simulation of complex nonlinear physical, economic, and social problems, as shown by the appearance of popular articles in journals ranging from Scientific American [16] to Forbes Magazine [17]. Experiments with various cellular automata models confirmed that even trivial, deterministic rules can produce extremely complicated and unforeseeable collective behavior [11]. A stochastic learning automaton is a unit characterized by probability distributions for a number of possible actions [18]. The units are connected to the stochastic outside environment. A stochastic reward/ penalty is the only input that the units receive from the environment. The asymptotic behavior of collectives of such units can be established by using the theory of Markov processes. The probabilities of the agents actions are updated by the reward/penalty received from the environment based on their and other agents behavior. Actions are taken according to these probabilities. The outputs of the stochastic envi-

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are influenced by the actions of all participating units whose existence may not even be known to the other units. Behavior is learned by adjusting the

ronment

operator and a defector, respectively, as functions of the number of cooperators related to the total number of neighbors (Figure 1). Each curve may include a constant stochastic factor that is multiplied by a random number to make the response from the environment stochastic. Zero stochastic factor means a deterministic environment. The freedom of using any functions for the determination of the reward/penalty system makes it possible to simulate a wide range of social situations, including those where the two curves intersect each other [19]. The specific probability updating schemes depend on the agents personalities. The probability update curve is user-defined. It specifies the change in the probability of choosing the previously chosen action based on a number of factors. Such factors include the reward/penalty received for that action, the history of rewards/penalties received for all actions, the actions of the agents neighbors, etc. The model in its present form allows for the follow-

probabilities to the responses of the environlearning capability alters the agents behavior as they make repeated decisions. The aggregate behavior of the society of agents usually converges to a stable or oscillating state. Our model is a new approach to nonlinear stochastic dynamic system modeling. The participating agents
action
ment. The

combinations of the two types of automata described above. They are stochastic learning automata directly connected to their neighbors. The size of the neighborhood is a user-defined variable. It may be just the immediate Moore or Neumann neighborhood or any number of layers of agents around the given agent. In the limiting case, all agents are considered neighbors, and they collectively form the environment for each participating agent. The size and shape of the simulation environment are also user-defined variables. In general the simulation environment is a two-dimensional array of agents. A possible special case is a linear environment that consists of at least two participants. (This limiting case is important because it makes the investigation of two-agent games possible.) The number of neighbors depends on the definition of the neighborhood, but also on the location of the unit: a unit in the corner of the array has fewer neighbors than one in the middle. The payoff (reward/penalty) functions are given as two curves: they specify the reward/penalty for a coare

ing personality profiles: The &dquo;normal&dquo; agent whose probability of cooperation p changes by an amount proportional to its reward from the environment (the coefficient of
~ ~

proportionality is a user-defined parameter). The stochastically predictable who cooperates with a given probability p. Special cases of this are: The benevolent who always cooperates (p=l), The angry who always defects (p=0), and The unpredictable who acts randomly (p=0.5). The accountant whose probability of cooperation depends on the average reward for its previous
~ ~
~

actions.
~

The greedy who always imitates the the highest reward.

neighbor with

The conformist who the majority.

always imitates the action of

A 3.

variety of other personality types is possible

The Simulation Tool

Figure 1. Reward/penalty functions of the simulated social environment. The axes represent the ratio of cooperators to the total number of neighbors (x) and the reward/penalty provided by the environment (y). The D curve is for a defector, the C curve is for a cooperator. Both curves have finite thicknesses determined by the stochastic factor.

Our model is implemented in the simulation tool called Dilemma. The simulated society for an experiment consists of a two-dimensional rectangular array of agents. The array can be as small as a single agent or as large as the virtual memory of the machine will allow. Arrays containing several million agents are quite feasible. If the experimenter is working with relatively few agents, he may wish to have more than one pixel on the screen represent each agent, so that the agents are more clearly visible. Dilemma allows the user to draw each agent as a rectangle of a given size. The state and action of each agent in the array change with time. One unit of time is called an iteration. The experimenter sets up the array at iteration zero. Thereafter, the experimenter can view and record the evolution of the society iteration by iteration.

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Simulation of a Prisoners Dilemma with all agents greedy. The D curve is defined by 1.65 x, the equation of the C curve is y x. The stochastic factor is zero. The initial configuration is a single defector in the middle of 6,560 cooperators. The picture shows the situation after 1,000 iterations. The black agents are cooperators, the white ones are defectors.

Figure 2.
y
=

For convenience, Dilemma can be told to run for a given number of iterations. The depth of agent As neighborhood is defined as the maximum distance, in the horizontal and vertical directions, that agent B can be from agent A and still be in its neighborhood. For example, if agent A is located in the comer of a large array and its neighborhood depth is 1, then it has three neighbors. If agent B is located anywhere in a 100 x 100 array and its neighborhood depth is infinite, then it has 9,999 neighbors. Dilemma allows the experimenter to use any neighborhood depth equal to or greater than one, or a neighborhood depth of infinity. In the current version each agent has the same neighborhood depth. All of the personality types described in the model are supported by Dilemma. Agents with various personalities and various initial states and actions, as well as various parameters for the state updates associated with their respective personalities, can be placed anywhere in the array. This means that different agents with completely different personalities can be allowed to interact with each other in the same experiment, resulting in observations of how the various personality types respond to one another. Dilemmas design even provides for the addition of entirely new personality types with minimal programming. Dilemma is an analytical tool for serious investigators rather than casual users. It reads an ASCII text

connguranon me wnen it starts,

~ ~

ana tne contents or

this file determine all the parameters of the experiment:

Number of rows and columns in the array of agents Size and coloration of the agents

Depth of the neighborhood for each agent Payoff curves for cooperators and defectors
Personalities of individual agents at various locations in the array
Initial actions of individual tions in the array

agents at various loca-

Initial cooperation of individual agents at various locations in the array

has

Having the experiment defined in a configuration file significant benefits for the experimenter. This way, experiments can be rerun, shared with other experior

menters,
This

archived and indexed in a natural fashion.

approach is unusual in nonlinear dynamic sys-

tem simulation.

When Dilemma is run, it displays two windows, labeled &dquo;graphics output&dquo; and &dquo;status display.&dquo; The &dquo;graphics output&dquo; window contains blocks that represent the agents in the simulation and their most recent actions. The user can ask for a four-color display, which shows the current and previous action for each agent, or a black-and-white display, which shows only the current action for each agent (Figure 2). The

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Figure 3. Evolution of the dilemma shown in Figure 2 over time. The graph shows the proportion of cooperating agents as a function of the number of iterations.
&dquo;status display&dquo; window provides more detailed textual information about individual agents. The experimenter selects the agent to be examined in detail by
above conditions be

can

expressed as:

pointing at it with the mouse. This information includes the agents coordinates in the array, the agents two most recent actions, the agents personality type, the last reward or punishment that the agent received, and the agents current probability of cooperation. As the mouse pointer moves and as iterations are run, both windows are continuously updated. When the experimenter stops the simulation, the history of aggregate cooperation proportions for each iteration is presented as a list of numerical values as well as an automatically generated plot (Figure 3). The simulation tool is implemented in object-oriented C++. Dilemma is designed for portability and currently
Unix and the X Window system and on Win 32-based operating systems (Microsoft Windows 9x and Windows NT).
runs on

and

Social dilemmas are usually defined within game theory that assumes that the players act rationally. According to equation (1), each rational player will
choose defection and,
as a

result, everyone loses

(equation (2)). Fortunately, human beings are rarely

rational. We do not buy stocks for their value but because other people buy them or because of a statement by a celebrity. The apparent unpredictability of people is made up of some random behavior plus elements of quite predictable behavior by different individuals with a variety of personalities. Dilemma will make it possible to get a handle on how to understand the aggregate behaviors in terms of what we know about personality characteristics, the distribution of these characteristics in various populations, and the effects of these characteristics on an agents desire to compete
or

4. A Typical Experiment The most thoroughly investigated social dilemma is the so-called Prisoners Dilemma where the following
two

properties are present: 1. Regardless of what the other participants do, each participant receives a higher payoff for defecting behavior than for cooperating behavior, and 2. All participants receive a lower payoff if all defect than if all cooperate [20]. Let us consider the case of N participants with m of them cooperating. If C(m) and D(m) are the payoffs to a cooperator and a defector, respectively, then the
8

cooperate.
As

an example, Figures 2 and 3 are taken from a simulation of the Prisoners Dilemma with all 6,561 agents greedy. The other parameters are listed in the

figure captions.
5.

Conclusions

The simulation tool reported in this paper is a substantial extension of previous work in several aspects:

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1. It is

general framework for inquiry in which the properties of the environment as well as those of the agents are user-defined parameters and the number of agents who all interact with each other through the environment can be very large. Previous work is mostly
a

N-agent Prisoners Dilemma game with non-rational participants having different personalities.

limited to simulation of two-person games [6]. In the few instances when the behavior of larger numbers of agents is simulated [7-12], the simulation is restricted to narrowly defined special cases.
For example, in reference [11], the agents interact with each other only pair-wise, they all have the same pre-defined personality, and the environment is deterministic and defined through one single

The emergence of social norms. The investigation of these problems has not been possible with any of the previously available simulation tools. We have already started using our tool for the investigation of collective action [21] and the evolution of cooperation in biological systems [22]. The first results are very encouraging; they show that for the case of non-rational &dquo;normal&dquo; agents, the multiplayer Prisoners Dilemma game has a non-trivial but remarkably regular and predictable solution.
~

parameter.
2. The agents have various distinct, user-defined &dquo;personalities.&dquo; Agents with various personalities can be arbitrarily mixed with each other in the same experiment. This has never been possible before. 3. The

6.

Acknowledgements

participating agents are described as stochastic learning cellular automata, i.e., as combinations of cellular automata and stochastic learning automata. This approach is flexible enough to model human decision-making agents more realistically than any of the existing models.

This work was partially supported by a grant from the American Society for Engineering Education. One of the authors (M.N.S.) would like to express his appreciation to the Naval Command, Control and Ocean Surveillance Center, Research, Development, Test and Evaluation Division (NRaD), San Diego, California, and especially to Dr. Ronald Larsen, Dr. David Lambert and Mr. Rey Yturralde for their support of this work and for many stimulating discussions. 7.

In addition, our model advances the state of the art in simulating nonlinear dynamic systems in general, and it is an enhancement over current thinking on characterizing group dynamics because it demonstrates the usefulness of simulation in this field. Our computer software tool will be used for the simulation of a wide range of social phenomena. We
are
~

Software
on

Availability

copyright 1998, Arizona Board of behalf of the University of Arizona. All Regents, rights reserved. The software tool is available from the authors by e-mailing to mns@ece.arizona.edu. Use is subject to certain restrictions, terms of which are provided with the software.
The software tool is 8.

planning to: Develop collective behavioral models for finding

the best sets of parameters and rules that accurately predict group behavior of a large number of participants in realistic situations.

References

[1] Liebrand, W.B.G., Messick, D.M. and Wilke, H.A.M. (eds.).

Social Dilemmas: Theoretical Issues and Research Findings, Pergamon Press, Oxford and New York, 1992. [2] Komorita, S.S. and Parks, C.D. Social Dilemmas, Brown & Benchmark, Madison, WI, 1994. [3] Schulz, U., Albers, W. and Mueller, U. (eds.). Social Dilemmas and Cooperation, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg and New York, 1994. [4] Schroeder, D.A. (ed.). Social Dilemmas: Perspectives on Individuals and Groups, Praeger, Westport, CT, 1995. [5] Oliver, P.E. "Formal Models of Collective Action." Ann. Rev. Sociol., Vol. 19, pp 271-300, 1993. [6] Axelrod, R. The Evolution of Cooperation, Basic Books, New

Simulate real-life social phenomena, especially collective actions and social dilemmas involving choices of conflict versus cooperation, as well as situations of long-term social change.

Investigate how decision-making actions of the participants can be influenced. Investigate what personality characteristics govern the propagation of cooperative and competitive
behavior. Demonstrate potential applications of the tool to human decision support.
We
are

York, 1984.

[7] Feinberg, W.E. and Johnson,

N.R. "Radical

Leaders, Moder-

ate Followers: Effects of Alternative Strategies on Achieving Consensus for Action in Simulated Crowds." Journal of Math.

, Sociol. Vol. 15, pp 91-115, 1990.

especially interested in the simulation of the following problems: Propagation of cooperation from a small group of originators. The dependence of crowd reactions on the location of instigators and the density of social ties.
~ ~
~

[8] Macy, M.W. "Chains of Cooperation: Threshold Effects in

Collective Action." Am. Sociol. Rev., Vol. 56, pp 730-747,
1991.

[9] McPhail, C., Powers, W.T. and Tucker, C.W. "Simulating Individual and Collective Action in Temporary Gatherings."
Soc. Sci.

Computer Rev., Vol. 10, pp 1-28, 1992.

[10] Glance, N.S. and Huberman, B.A. "The Outbreak of Cooperation." J. of Math. Sociol., Vol. 17, No. 4, pp 281-302, 1993. [11] Nowak, M.A. and May, R.M. "Evolutionary Games and Spatial Chaos." Nature, Vol. 359, pp 826-829, 1992.

The role of group size in the evolution of cooperation.

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[12] Lloyd, A.L. "Computing Bouts of the Prisoners Dilemma." Scientific American, Vol. 272, No. 6, pp 110-115, 1995. [13] Epstein, J.M. and Axtell, R. Growing Artificial Societies. Brookand London, 1996. [14] Wolfram, S. CellularAutomata and Complexity. Addison-

ings Institution Press-The MIT Press, Washington, Cambridge

Wesley, 1994.
[15] Conway, J. Regular Algebra and Finite Machines. Chapman and
Hall, London, 1971. No. 2, pg 16,1997.

[16] Beardsley, T. "Agent Angst." Scientific American, Vol. 276,

[17] Koselka, R. "Playing the Game of Life." Forbes, April 7, 1997. [18] Narendra, K.S. and Thathachar, M.A.L. Learning Automata
(An Introduction). Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1989.

Miklos N. Szilagyi received an MS degree with honors in Engineering Physics and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Polytechnical University of Leningrad, a DTech degree from the Polytechnical University of Budapest, and a DSc degree of exceptional distinction from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He taught and did research at numerous universities and research institutions in Hungary, Denmark
and -Germanv before coming to the n-_u ---------.1 --------0
__ _
-----

[19] Schelling, T.C. "Hockey Helmets, Concealed Weapons, and Daylight Saving." J. of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 17, No. 3,
pp 381-428, 1973. "Social Dilemmas." Ann. Rev. Psychol., Vol. 31, pp 169-193, 1980. [21] Szilagyi, M.N. "Quantitative Relationships Between Collective Action and Prisoners Dilemma." Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Vol. 15, 1998. [22] Szilagyi, M.N. and Szilagyi, Z.C. "Solutions to Realistic Evolutionary Games." Submitted to Nature.

[20] Dawes, R.M.

United States in 1976. He worked at the University of Chicago, the University of California-Berkeley, and Stanford and Cornell Universities. Dr. Szilagyi has been a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Arizona since 1982. He has contributed to the development of electron and ion beam devices, particle accelerators, spectrometers, ion-beam lithography, biomedical engineering, and computer-aided design. His research interests also include modeling, simulation, artificial intelligence and neural networks. He has written 11 books and more than 130 refereed articles, and holds two patents. Dr. Szilagyi is a member of IEEE, the American Physical Society, and many other professional organizations, and is listed in numerous publications, including Whos Who in the World.

>

Szilagyi received his BS in Computer Science from the University of Arizona in 1997. As an undergraduate, he developed software for an optical tomography system
for studying chaotic chemical reactions in three dimensions. He coauthored a paper about the tomography system that was published in the journal Chaos. Also as an under_ .. _

Zoltan

graduate. he worked on software o___________, instrument on a NASA probe used to analyze soil samples on the surface of Mars. He currently resides in the Seattle area, where he works as a Software Engineer.
------------.w -._ _

for

an

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10