Agent based modeling of individual voting preferences with social influence

Abstract

Agent Based Modeling (ABM) is usually referred to as the third way of doing modeling & simulation in contrast to the historically popular equation-based macrosimulations and microsimulations. In ABM a system is modeled as a set of autonomous agents who interact with each other and also with the environment. The agents represent various actors in the system and the environment represents agent's surroundings and the overall context. ABM has been successfully applied to model and analyze a number of complex social processes and structures, ranging from habitation patterns to spread of culture. In this paper, we present our experimental work on applying ABM to model individual voting preferences. The model explores process of formation of voting preferences, the factors governing it and its effect on the final voting pattern. We have incorporated social influence theory in our model and experimented with various settings. The paper concludes with a short discussion of the results and their relevance. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.