In the first part of the paper, the field of Agent-Based Modelling (ABM) is discussed focusing on the role of generative theories, aiming at explaining phenomena by growing them. After a brief analysis of the major strengths of the field some crucial weaknesses are analysed. In particular, the...

In the seminal work "An Evolutionary Approach to Norms", Axelrod identified internalization as one of the key mechanisms that supports the spreading and stabilization of norms. But how does this process work? This paper advocates a rich cognitive model of different types, degrees and factors of...

The ultimate goal of the FuturICT Flagship is to understand and manage complex, global, socially interactive systems, with a focus on sustainability and resilience. Revealing the hidden laws and processes underlying societies constitutes the most pressing scientific grand challenge of our...

Why do financial markets crash again and again? How can we construct resilient institutions? What determines human happiness and well-­‐being, and how are they influenced by personal wealth? How can society change behaviours that destroy our environment and other important public goods? Big...

To deal with the grand challenges before us (financial and political crises, growing inequality, social unrest, corruption, organized crime, etc.) we need theories for understanding-while-producing social artifacts (material and immaterial artifacts spontaneously emerging or designed for humans...

In this work simulation-based and analytical results on the emergence steady states in traffic-like interactions are presented and discussed. The objective of the paper is twofold: i) investigating the role of social conventions in coordination problem situations, and more specifically in...

This paper introduces Repage, a computational system that adopts a cognitive theory of reputation. We propose a fundamental difference between image and reputation, which suggests a way out from the paradox of sociality, i.e. the trade-off between agents' autonomy and their need to adapt to...

This paper presents a pre-formal social cognitive model of social responsibility as implying the deliberative capacity of the bearer but not necessarily her decision to act or not. Also, responsibility is defined as an objective property of agents, which they cannot remit at their will. Two...

One of the cognitive processes responsible for social propagation is social learning, broadly meant as the process by means of which agents' acquisition of new information is caused or favoured by their being exposed to one another in a common environment. Social learning results from one or...

This paper is intended to analyse the concepts involved in the phenomena of social monitoring and norm-based social influence for systems of normative agents. These are here defined as deliberative agents, representing norms and deciding upon them. Normative agents can use the norms to evaluate...