The Signals of Play: An ABM of Affective Signatures in Children’s Playgroups

Abstract

Ubiquitous self-organizing animal and human groups have increasingly become the focus of research by scientists interested in social dynamics. While a substantial amount of literature exists on the behavioral interaction patterns found in animal groups (see Dugatkin, 2001 for a review), there is not a comparable body of work in the social sciences. From hunter-gatherers to city-dwellers, structured gatherings of humans appear in all cultures. These groups range from married couples and co-workers to large crowds and neighborhoods, with each type having a distinct structure and ontology. Despite the variation found in the composition and evolution of these groups, it appears that humans, like a number of other species, improve their ability to adapt to environmental variability through clustering. What is not clear, however, is how discrete entities, each with unique attributes and preferences, contribute to the formation of these groups. Even less is known about the socio-developmental processes involved in these groups or the influence that these processes may have on subsequent group evolution.