Abstract
We present a small-group model that moderates agent behavior using several factors to illustrate the influence of social reflexivity on individual behavior. To motivate this work, we review a validated simulation of the Battle of Medenine. Individuals in the battle performed with greater variance than the simulation predicted, suggesting that individual differences are important. Using a light-weight simulation, we implement one means of representing these differences inspired in part by Grossman’s (On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. Little, Brown and Company, New York, 1995) participation formula. This work contributes to a general theory of social reflexivity by offering a theory of participation as a social phenomenon, independent of explicit agent knowledge. We demonstrate that our preliminary version of the participation model generates individual differences that in turn have a meaningful impact on group performance. Specifically, our results suggest that a group member’s location with respect to other group members and observers can be an important exogenous source of individual differences.
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.References
Allport GW (1954) The nature of prejudice. Addison-Wesley, Cambridge
Amir Y (1969) Contact hypothesis in ethnic relations. Psychol Bull 11:319–342
Athens LH (1980) Violent criminal acts and actors: a symbolic interactionist study. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London
Axelrod R (2003) Advancing the art of simulation in the social sciences. J Jpn Soc Manag Inform Syst 12(3):3–16
Bales RF, Borgatta EF (1955) Size of group as a factor in the interaction profile. In: Hare AP, Borgatta EF, Bales RF (eds) Small groups: studies in social interaction. Random House, Toronto, pp 495–512
Bales RF, Strodtbeck FL, Mills TM, Roseborough ME (1951) Channels of communication in small groups. Am Sociol Rev 16:461–468
Benenson JF, Nicholson C, Waite A, Roy R, Simpson A (2001) The influence of group size on children’s competitive behavior. Child Dev 72:921–928
Berger J, Rosenholtz SJ, Zelditch M (1980) In: Inkeles A, Smelser NJ, Turner KH (eds) Status organizing processes. Annual review of sociology, vol 6. Annual Reviews, Palo Alto, pp 479–508
Bogardus ES (1933) A social distance scale. Soc Sociol Res 17:265–271
Bourdieu P (1980) Le sens pratique. Les Editions de Minuit, Paris
Boyd J (1987) A discourse on winning and losing [Briefing slides]. Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base
Byrne D (1971) The attraction paradigm. Academic Press, New York
Caplan G (1974) Support systems and community mental health: lectures on concept development. Behavioral Publications, New York
Carley KM (1986) Efficiency in a garbage can: implications for crisis management. In: March J, Weisinger-Baylon R (eds) Ambiguity and command: organizational perspective on military decision making. Pitman, Boston
Carley KM (1991) A theory of group stability. Am Sociol Rev 56(3):331–354
Carley KM (1992) Organizational learning and personnel turnover. Organ Sci 3(1):20–46
Carley KM (2002) Intra-organizational complexity and computation. In: Baum JAC (ed) The Blackwell companion to organizations. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, pp 208–232
Carley KM, Newell A (1994) The nature of the social agent. J Math Sociol 19(4):221–262
Cartwright D (1968) The nature of group cohesiveness. In: Cartwright D, Zander A (eds) Group dynamics: research and theory. Harper & Row, New York, pp 91–118
Chekroun P, Brauer M (2002) The bystander effect and social control behavior: the effect of the presence of others on people’s reactions to norm violations. Eur J Soc Psychol 32(6):853–867
Cialdini RB, Reno RR, Kallgren CA (1990) Focus theory of normative conduct: recycling the concept of norms to reduce littering in public places. J Pers Soc Psychol 58(6):1015–1026
Cobb S (1976) Social support as a moderator of life stress. Psychosom Med 38(5):300–314
Collins R (1981) On the microfoundations of macrosociology. J Sociol 86(5):984–1014
Collins R (2008) Violence: a micro-sociological theory. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Dinter E (1985) Hero or coward: pressures facing the soldier in battle. Frank Cass and Company Limited, Totowa
Downs RM, Stea D (1973) Cognitive maps and spatial behavior: process and products. In: Downs RM, Stea D (eds) Images and environment: cognitive mapping and spatial behavior. Aldine, Chicago, pp 8–26
Duncan HD (1968) Symbols in society. Oxford University Press, New York
Duric Z, Gray WD, Heishman R, Li F, Rosenfeld A, Schoelles MJ, Shunn C, Wechsler H (2002) Integrating perceptual and cognitive modeling for adaptive and intelligent human-computer interaction. Proc IEEE 90(7):1272–1289
Epley SW (1974) Reduction of the behavioral effects of aversive stimulation by the presence of companions. Psychol Bull 81(5):271–283
Ethington PJ (1997). The intellectual construction of “social distance”: toward a recovery of Georg Simmel’s social geometry. Cybergeo: Eur J Geogr. Article 30. http://cybergeo.revues.org/index227.html
Eveland W Jr, Nathanson AI, Detenber BH, McLeod DM (1999) Rethinking the social distance corollary: perceived likelihood of exposure and the third-person perception. Commun Res 26(3):275–302
Faulkner RS (2008) The school of hard knocks: combat leadership in the American expeditionary forces. Unpublished PhD thesis, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS
Festinger L, Thibaut J (1951) Interpersonal communication in small group. J Abnorm Soc Psychol 46(1):92–99
Festinger L (1954) A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relat 7(2):117–140
Fine GA (1991) On the macrofoundations of microsociology: constrain and the exterior reality of structure. Sociol Q 32(2):161–177
Frank JD (1944) Experimental studies of personal pressure and resistance: I. Experimental production of resistance. J Gen Psychol 30:23–41
Freedman DG (1974) Human infancy. Erlbaum, Hillsdale
Giddens A (1978) Durkheim. Harvester Press, Sussex
Giddens A (1991) Modernity and self-identity: self and society in the late modern age. Stanford University Press, Chicago
Ginges J, Eyal S (2009) Psychological distance, group size and intergroup relations. In: Proceedings of the 32nd international society of political psychology. ISSP, Dublin, pp 51–65
Goffman E (1974) Frame analysis: an essay on the organization of experience. Harvard University Press, New York
Gratch J, Marsella S (2004) A domain-independent framework for modeling emotion. J Cogn Syst Res 5(4):269–306
Grossman DL (1995) On killing: the psychological cost of learning to kill in war and society. Little, Brown and Company, New York
Haney C, Banks WC, Zimbardo PG (1973) Study of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison. Office of Naval Research (ONR), Washington
Hare AP (1952) A study of interaction and consensus in different sized groups. Am Sociol Rev 17:261–267
Harrison A, Winters J, Anthistle D (1999) Ironside: a command and battle space simulation. In: Proceedings of the 1999 summer computer simulation conference. The Society for Modeling and Simulation International (SCS), Chicago, pp 550–554
Harrison DA, Price KH, Bell MP (1998) Beyond relational demography: time and the effects of surface and deep level diversity on work group cohesion. Acad Manag J 41(1):96–107
Howell DC (1987) Statistical methods for psychology, 2nd edn. Duxbury Press, Boston
Jackson SE, Mary KE, Whitney K (1995) Understanding the dynamics of diversity in decision-making teams. In: Guzzo RA, Salas E (eds) Team decision-making effectiveness in organizations. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, pp 204–261
Jussim L, Harber KD (2005) Teacher expectations and self-fulfilling prophecies: knowns and unknowns, resolved and unresolved controversies. Personal Soc Psychol Rev 9(2):131–155
Katz J (1988) Seductions of crime: moral and sensual attractions in doing evil. Basic Books, New York
Latane B, Darely JM (1970) The unresponsive bystander: why doesn’t he help? Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs
Lazarus RS, Folkman S (1984) Stress, appraisal, and coping. Springer Publishing Company, Inc, New York
Lewin K (1947) Frontiers in group dynamics: concepts, method and reality in social science; social equilibria and social change. Human Relat 1(1):5–41
Liska AE (1997) Modeling the relationships between macro forms of social control. Annu Rev Sociol 23(1):39–61
Lovett MC, Daily LZ, Reder LM (2000) A source activation theory of working memory: cross-task prediction of performance in ACT-R. J Cogn Syst Res 1(2):99–118
March JG, Simon HA (1958) Organizations. Wiley, New York
McFadden D (1980) Econometric models for probabilistic choice among products. J Business 53(3):S13–S29
McGrath JE (1984) Groups: interaction and process. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs
Milgram S (1963) Behavioral study of obedience. J Abnorm Soc Psychol 67(4):371–378
Milliken FJ, Martins LL (1996) Searching for common threads: understanding the multiple effects of diversity in organizational groups. Acad Manag J 25:598–606
Morgan GP, Ritter FE, Stevenson WE, Schenck IN, Cohen MA (2005) dTank: an environment for architectural comparisons of competitive agents. In: Proceedings of the 14th conference on behavior representation in modeling and simulation, 105-BRIMS-043. Orlando, FL, pp 133–140
Nagel E (1961) The structure of science: problems in the logic of scientific explanation. Harcourt, Brace & World, New York
Newcomb TM (1961) The acquaintance process. Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, New York
Newell A (1990) Unified theories of cognition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge
Norling E, Ritter FE (2004). A parameter set to support psychologically plausible variability in agent-based human modelling. In: The third international joint conference on autonomous agents and multi agent systems (AAMAS04), pp 758–765
O’Reilly CA III, Caldwell DF, Barnett WP (1989) Work group demography, social integration, and turnover. Adm Sci Q 34:21–37
Park RE (1924) The concept of social distance as applied to the study of racial attitudes and racial relations. J Appl Sociol 8:339–344
Perloff RM (1993) Third-person effect research 1983–1992: a review and synthesis. Int J Publ Opin Res 5:167–184
Poncelin de Raucourt VPM (1997) The reconstruction of part of the Battle of Medenine. Unpublished MSc thesis. The Royal Military College of Science, Shrivenham
Popper K (1957) The poverty of historicism. Routledge & Kegan Paul, New York
Ritter FE, Norling E (2006) Including human variability in a cognitive architecture to improve team simulation. In: Sun R (ed) Cognition and multiagent interaction: from cognitive modeling to social simulation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 417–427
Ritter FE, Reifers AL, Schoelles MJ, Klein LC (2007) Lessons from defining theories of stress for architectures. In: Gray W (ed) Integrated models of cognitive systems. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 254–262
Rock PE (1979) The making of symbolic interactionism. Rowman and Littlefield, Totowa
Rosenthal R (1994) Interpersonal expectancy effects: a 30-year perspective. Curr Dir Psychol Sci 3(6):176–179
Rowland D (2006) The stress of battle: quantifying human performance in combat. TSO, London
Sandler IR, Lakey B (1982) Locus of control as a stress moderator: the role of control perceptions and social support. Am Commun J Psychol 10(1):65–80
Selye H (1956) The stress of life. McGraw-Hill, New York
Shalit B (1988) The psychology of conflict and combat. Praeger Publishers, New York
Silverman BG (2004) Human performance simulation. In: Ness JW, Ritzer DR, Tepe V (eds) The science and simulation of human performance. Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp 469–498
Simon HA (1954) Bandwagon and underdog effects and the possibility of election predictions. Public Opin Q 18(3):245–253
Slater PE (1958) Contrasting correlates of group size. Sociometry 21:129–139
Smith ER, Mackie DM (1995) Social psychology. Worth Publishers, New York
Snook SA (2000) Friendly fire: the accidental shootdown of US Black Hawks over northern Iraq. Princeton University Press, Princeton
St John P (1994) History of the third infantry division: rock of the Marne (75th anniversary edition ed.). Turner Publishing Company, Nashville
Stangor C, Lynch L, Duan C, Glass B (1992) Categorization of individuals on the basis of multiple social features. J Pers Soc Psychol 62:207–218
Taylor G, Bectel R, Morgan G, Waltz E (2006) A framework for modeling social power structures. Paper presented at the annual conference of the North American Association for computational social and organizational sciences, Notre Dame, IN
Terborg JR, Castore C, DeNinno JA (1976) A longitudinal field investigation of the impact of group composition on group performance and cohesion. J Pers Soc Psychol 34:782–790
Tskeris C, Katrivesis N (2008) Reflexivity in sociological theory and social action. Facta Univ 7(1):1–12
Turban DB, Jones AP (1988) Supervisor-subordinate similarity: types, effects, and mechanisms. J Appl Psychol 73:228–234
Turner JC (1987) Rediscovering the social group: a self-categorization theory. Basil Blackwell, Oxford
Wetherell C, Plakans A, Wellman B (1994) Networks, neighborhoods, and communities: approaches to the study of the community question. Urban Aff Q 14(3):363–390
Westie FR, Westie ML (1956) The social-distance pyramid: relationships between caste and class. Am J Sociol 63:190–196
Williams R (1973) The country and the city of New York. Oxford University Press, London
Yen J, Yin J, Ioerger TR, Miller MS, Xu D, Volz RA (2001) CAST: collaborative agents for simulating teamwork. In: Proceedings of the seventeenth international joint conference on artificial intelligence (IJCAI-01). Morgan Kaufmann, Los Altos, pp 1135–1142
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Morgan, J.H., Morgan, G.P. & Ritter, F.E. A preliminary model of participation for small groups. Comput Math Organ Theory 16, 246–270 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10588-010-9075-1
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10588-010-9075-1