PhD Ceremony Layman's talk

1. Integrating Social Practice Theory in Agent-Based Models
Rijk Mercuur
SimulatingHumanRoutines

2. Motivation:RoutinesInfluence
Our routines play an important role in social challenges.

3. Motivation:SimulationsHelp
Simulations represent social problems by modelling individuals and their
interactions.

4. Motivation:SimulationsHelp
By playing with the parameters we create ‘what if’ scenarios and show
that one parameter has a relative high influence.

5. PROBLEM:SIMULATINGROUTINES
Humans make habitual decisions, interconnect these habits throughout the day and
use these interconnected habits as a blueprint for social interaction.
you intentionally go to the
office to trigger the routine
of working
You colleague waits till the
coffee break to discuss current
matters
I’ll read a paper now (which
connects to working) and drink
coffee later (which connects to
taking a break
Activate
work habit!
Connect
activities! Expect similarity!

6. PROBLEM:SIMULATINGROUTINES
Current agent frameworks do not capture the automatic, implicit and social nature of
our behaviour.

7. SOLUTION:TheSoPRAFRAMEWORK
The social practice agent (SOPRA) framework integrates evidence on
human routines to support simulation studies.

8. SOLUTION:TheSoPRAFRAMEWORK
SoPrA deep down is a bunch of variables and algorithms

9. TheMainDifficulty
The difficulty in modelling a domain-independent framework is to
balance reuseability with grounding in empirical work.
Reuseable Grounded
in
Emperical
Work
Generality
Specifity
Vague literature describing
social phenomena
Concrete requirements
Verifying whether these
requirements hold in the model
Concepts that
generalize over domains
u
Modular
Compact

10. Overview
The dissertation describes (I) models for agents with values and norms
(II) the SoPrA agent framework (III) applications of the framework
I.Agents with
Values and
Norms
II. Agent
Framework
forHuman
Routines
III.
Applications

11. Agentswithvaluesandnorms
Values and norms describe what people find important and consider
normal; routines describe more.
I. Agentswith
Valuesand
Norms

12. CreatingSoPRA
Social practices – human routines – integrate three aspects of human
behaviour: habituality, sociality and interconnectedness.
II.Agent
Framework
for Human
Routines

13. CreatingSoPRA
Social practices – human routines – integrate three aspects of human
behaviour: habituality, sociality and interconnectedness.
II.Agent
Framework
for Human
Routines

14. CreatingSoPRA
Social practices – human routines – integrate three aspects of human
behaviour: habituality, sociality and interconnectedness.
II.Agent
Framework
for Human
Routines

15. CreatingSoPRA
Social practices – human routines – integrate three aspects of human
behaviour: habituality, sociality and interconnectedness.
II.Agent
Framework
for Human
Routines

16. CreatingSoPRA
Social practices – human routines – integrate three aspects of human
behaviour: habituality, sociality and interconnectedness.
Activate
work habit!
Connect
activities! Expect similarity!
II.Agent
Framework
for Human
Routines

17. Applications
SoPrA is used to support simulations on meat-eating, AI, hospitals, and
habitual theories.
Simulating Meat
Eating
Aligning Values in AI Identifying Social
Bottlenecks in
Hospitals
Discerning Two
Theories on Habits
III. Applica-
tions

18. SimulatingDiningtoReduceMeat
Eating
The agents move from location to location and either eat vegan,
vegetarian or meat.
III. Applica-
tions

19. SimulatingDiningtomotivatemeat
reduction
The agents move from location to location and either eat vegan,
vegetarian or meat.
III. Applica-
tions

20. AligningValuesinAI
SoPrA provides a simulated partner to train AI to estimate human
values.
III. Applica-
tions

21. IdentifyingSocialBottlenecksinHospitals
SoPrA helps in modelling the protocols of an emergency room.
III. Applica-
tions

22. IdentifyingSocialBottlenecksinHospitals
SoPrA helps in identifying wether the staff can help each other out in a
given (reproduced) emergency room.
2. A head nurse can
cover some of the
necessary tasks of the
secretary.
3. The staff can help each
other out, because they
know the equipment the
others need.
III. Applica-
tions

23. Overview
This results in an evidence-driven framework useable for a wide range of
simulation studies that involve human routines.
I.Agents with
Values and
Norms
II. Agent
Framework
forHuman
Routines
III.
Applications

24. DiscerningTwo TheoriesonHabits
Theory A states that non-activitated habits weaken while theory B states
that non-activated habits stay the same.
III. Applica-
tions

25. DiscerningTwo TheoriesonHabits
In a certain scenario we found that the two theories should lead to
different observations: this helps to set-up an empirical experiment.
III. Applica-
tions

26. Motivation:SimulationsHelp
Complex aspects such as human interaction, learning, heterogeneity,
feedback loops and emergence
HumanInteraction
Heterogeneity
Emergence

28. Motivation:SimulationsHelp
Complex aspects such as human interaction, learning, heterogeneity,
feedback loops and emergence
Heterogeneity
FeedbackLoops
Learning

29. Motivation:SimulationsHelp
Complex aspects such as human interaction, learning, heterogeneity,
feedback loops and emergence
Heterogeneity
FeedbackLoops
Learning

31. Motivation:SimulationsHelp
Agent-based simulations helps in guiding policies