The Interaction of Social Conformity and Social orientation in Public Good Dilemmas - Advances in Social Simulation - page 141

The Interaction of Social Conformity
and Social orientation in Public Good Dilemmas

Friedrich Krebs

Centre for Environmental Systems Research, Kassel, Germany
[e-mail]

Abstract. This paper reports on an agent-based model that represents social mo-
bilisation as the collective provision of a public good. The model represents
processes of social influence, temporal dynamics, and collectives of agents each
behaviourally grounded in the HAPPenInGS theory ( H eterogeneous A gents
P roviding P ublic G ood s ) of preference-guided action selection of individuals in
public good dilemmas [1]. We introduce the HAPPenInGS theory and present
results of a series of simulation exercises scrutinising the interplay of individual-
level preferences, perceptions and behaviours, and macro-level outcomes.

Keywords: Public good dilemma, heterogeneous preferences, social orienta-
tions, social conformity.

1 Introduction and Motivation

In many real world contexts individuals find themselves in situations where they have
to decide between options of behaviour that serve a collective purpose or behaviours
which satisfy one's private interests, ignoring the collective. In some cases the under-
lying social dilemma [2] is solved and we observe collective action [3]. In others
social mobilisation is unsuccessful. To assess this phenomenon the explicit considera-
tion of heterogeneous individual preferences and social structure plays a key role.
This paper reports on an agent-based social simulation (ABSS) that represents so-
cial mobilisation as the collective provision of a public good. In large populations
such public good provision occurs on the level of spatially confined population sub-
groups. In the model we capture this spatial heterogeneity by assuming that diverse
public goods exist or emerge on fixed locations in a common environment. It is fur-
ther assumed that each public good has a fixed spatial extent defining the area where
contributions are accumulated and where benefits of the public good may emerge. In
addition to their spatial location, agents are embedded in a social structure allowing
them to observe the behaviour of other agents within their acting group and to ex-
change information through social networks which may span groups. The behavioural
target variable of an agent is its contribution to the public good in the next time step
of the model. Possible interference with the generally multi-facetted decision-making
in contexts other than the public good provision is not considered. Decision-making is
modelled by an implementation of the HAPPenInGS theory ( H eterogeneous A gents
P roviding P ubl i c G ood s ) of preference-guided action selection of individuals in pub-
lic good dilemmas [1]. HAPPenInGS is grounded in theoretic concepts and empirical