Course: Decision Making in a Complex World: Using Computer Simulations to Understand Human Behaviour

You have finished the course. Thank you for participating! We hope that at this stage you are able to: Explain how humans make decisions, according to classic and more contemporary …

In this video, Wander Jager discusses the possible future of social computation.

Balancing simplicity and realism in a model is always a challenge. Albert Einstein’s quote “a theory should be as simple as possible, but not simpler than that” certainly applies to …

In this video, Wander Jager discusses the level of realism that is needed for a model. As you experienced in the last exercises, adding additional behavioural processes to a model …

The HUMAT integrated architecture has been developed within the EU Horizon2020 SMARTEES project, and models successful cases of social innovations implemented in European cities and islands. Cases address for example …

In this video we discuss the challenge of bringing in behavioural theory into agent based models. After having seen the video, think of the ant model exercise with the three …

In this video, Wander Jager explains the different interests of people that were relevant to include in simulating the park referendum case. He explains what kind of policy experiments have …

This week we will be using a tool called Agent Based Modelling (ABM). In this step we will introduce you to how it operates. ABM is a computational tool allowing …

In this video, Wander is explaining that social simulations are increasingly being used to explore possible futures. The case of a referendum on making a park car-free is being discussed …

When we make decisions as humans, we take advantage of the information that is around us, to help us inform what the best decision is. In this video the social …

Many societal issues display emergent phenomena (see the introductory course on People, Networks and Neighbours: Understanding Social Dynamics for an article on the social dynamics of this). Hypes, opinion dynamics …

In this video, we explain why integrated models of human behaviour are needed in computational social science. Do you think all aspects that make us human, such as emotions and …

In the previous weeks you have been introduced to the modelling of decision-making, and did a number of exercises with models that included exploration, information exchange and normative influences. However, …

This week we briefly explored some approaches to modelling individuals making decisions. We talked about the classical choice theory based on the concept of utility. We saw how this approach …

One of the most important lessons we learn from a bounded rationality approach is that human cognition and how people make choices is largely shaped by who we are as …