A generic emotional contagion computational model

Abstract

This work describes a computational model designed for emotional contagion simulation in societies of agents, integrating the influence of interpersonal relationships and personality. It models the fundamental differences in individual susceptibilities to contagion based on the psychology study of Emotional Contagion Scale. The contagion process can also be biased by inter-individual relationships depending on the intimacy and power difference aspects of relationships between agents. Individuals' expressiveness in a group is influenced by both the extroversion personality trait and power difference. Additionally, the computational model includes the process of mood decay, as usually observed in people, expanding its application domain beyond that of pure simulation, like games. In this paper we present simulation results that verify the basic emotional contagion behaviors. The possibility of more complex contagion dynamics depending on agent group relationships is also presented. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.