A prominent explanation of cooperation in repeated exchange is reciprocity (e.g. Axelrod, 1984). However, empirical studies indicate that exchange partners are often much less intent on keeping the books balanced than Axelrod suggested. In particular, there is evidence for commitment behavior,...

Three decades of CA-modelling in the social sciences have shown that the cellular automata framework is a useful tool to explore the relationship between micro assumptions and macro outcomes in social dynamics. However, virtually all CA-applications in the social sciences rely on a potentially...

Small-world and power-law network structures have been prominently proposed as models of large networks. However, the assumptions of these models usually lack sociological grounding. We present a computational model grounded in social exchange theory. Agents search attractive exchange partners...

The article argues that using cellular automata (CA) is a promising modelling approach to understand social dynamics. The first section introduces and illustrates the concept of CA. Section 2 gives a short history of CA in the social sciences. Section 3 describes and analyses a more complicated...

Status beliefs link social distinctions, such as gender and race, to assumptions about competence and social worth. Recent modeling work in status construction theory suggests that interactions in small, task focused groups can lead to the spontaneous emergence and diffusion of such beliefs in...

Concerns about models of cultural adaptation as analogs of genetic selection have led cognitive game theorists to explore learning-theoretic specifications. Two prominent examples, the Bush-Mosteller stochastic learning model and the Roth-Erev payoff-matching model, are aligned and integrated as...

We address theoretically whether and under what conditions Schelling’s celebrated result of ‘self-organized’ unintended residential segregation may also apply to school segregation. We propose here a computational model of school segregation that is aligned with a...