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outcome of the sensitivity analysis is the identification of prototype parameter combi-
nations representing basic types of agents with regard to social orientation (cf. Fig. 2.
in [21]):
Altruistic agents
stress altruistic tendencies relative to egoistic tendencies (
pub-
licGoodPreference
=1.0,
selfPreference
=0.1
, othersPreference
=0.3
)
. In average,
these agents show contributions up to 0.42 and achieve high PG levels between 0.8
and 0.9.
•
•
Vice versa
egoistic agents
stress egoistic tendencies (
publicGoodPreference
=1.0,
selfPreference
=0.3
, othersPreference
=0.1
)
. For this type, average contribution lev-
els do not exceed 0.07 yielding negligible PG levels between 0.0 and 0.1.
The basic agent types are to be understood as discrete representatives of ranges of
parameter combinations in HAPPenInGS-A which lead to qualitatively similar macro-
level outcomes. Altruistic and egoistic types are located at the two extreme ends of
the spectrum of social orientations that are covered by HAPPenInGS-A and can be
seen as HAPPenInGS counterparts of prosocials and proselfs as found in experimental
work on PG dilemmas.
4.2
Social influence in Altruistic Populations
This section analyses the effect of increasing the weight put on the social conformity
preference in populations that are homogeneously composed of representatives of the
altruistic basic agent type (for a more detailed discussion including other agent types
refer to [1]). The preference sets considered in this sensitivity analysis combine the
prototype social orientation preference with different settings for the social conformi-
ty preference. For each combination of parameter settings 20 independent runs over
400 steps are performed. Simulation results are reported with respect to three different
indicators:
•
Agents' behaviours in terms of their mean contribution (black).
•
The standard deviation of agent behaviours within a population (vertical dashed,
black).
•
The temporal stability (convergence) of agent behaviours as the total decrease or
increase of contribution relative to the previous time step on the individual level
(delta contribution, blue).
•
Agents' achieved social conformity as the mean value of their perceived social
conformity (red). For each agent the social conformity perception is calculated ac-
cording to the criterion formula in Table 1. It reflects an agent's absolute attain-
ment of its social conformity preference.
•
The success of the collective action as the mean level of the PG of all groups
(green).
We report simulation results in terms of mean values of the respective 20 runs per-
formed per simulation tick. We pick three distinct settings for the weight of the social
conformity preference during decision-making: In the first diagram of Fig. 1 we
