CAN DYADIC AND SOCIAL INTERACTION IN
AXELROD MODEL BE CALIBRATED?
Arezky H. Rodríguez
Academia de Matemáticas, Plantel Cuautepec
Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México
Email: [email protected]
In the context of Agent Based Modeling, the Axelrod Model for the study of culture
dissemination has been exhaustively investigated. The use of dyadic interaction between
agents, in combination with homophily (the principle that “likes attract”) has shown to
produce two important problems: the prediction of monoculture in large societies and an
extremely narrow window of noise levels in which diversity with local convergence is
obtained.
Recently, the inclusion of social influence has proven to overcome them. Nevertheless,
social influence seems to be difficult to measure and quantify in societies because the
set of influence agents could be difficult to determine and meassure for the agents. It is
then desirable to find and equivalent model which, using dyadic interaction, could
produce the same outputs that when social interaction is considered. A model which use
dyadic interaction between agents, but without the problems first mentioned could be of
relevant for socio-computational investigations because (1) is simpler to consider
computational dyadic interaction than social influence, (2) a social theory based on
dyadic interaction is simpler to test and more clear to follow in its arguments and at the
same time (3) model alignment is and important and necessary tool to develop and
apply in Agent Based Modeling.
In this work, it is shown that a version of the Axelrod model which considers dyadic
interacting between agents, and local validating of the cultural traits, is equivalent to
previous models which consider social influence.
The work is relevant to the field of model development applied to social problems.