Saturday, January 01, 2005

Group Think

My recent experiences with certain people who shall remain nameless have caused me to think about the "group think" phenonenon. It turns out that a very simple agent model yields the appropriate emergent behavior. My model is a drastic simplification of Thomas Schelling's investigations of social systems.

The model follows the behavior of agents which may have one of two possible "opinions". The two possible opinions are represented by a color, red or green. Turtles may change their opinion on each turn based on the dominant opinion of their neighbors, thus showing the effects of a simple form of the "group think" phenomenon.

The model shows how the opinions of individuals rapidly form large-scale patterns. The model itself, with documentation, is here.

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