Mitchell Centre Seminar Series - Federico Bianchi & Francesco Renzini (University of Milan) - Agent-Based Modelling for Social Network Research: Two Examples
| Dates: | 3 December 2025 |
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| Times: | 16:00 - 17:30 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Social Sciences |
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| Speaker: | Federico Bianchi, Francesco Renzini |
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The seminar will be centred on Agent-Based Modelling (ABM) as a strategy for modelling social networks while avoiding some of the pitfalls of standard statistical models. Because of its high flexibility, ABM allows researchers to model the formation of social ties and the influence that ties exert on individual attributes as the outcome of network nodes undertaking a variety of possible decision-making processes. In this way, models can be developed that do not rely on unrealistic assumptions about specific social contexts (e.g., complete information about the global degree distribution, nodes’ limited memory of past interactions, sequentiality of tie changes) and can account for threshold-based decision-making processes. This point will be made using two examples. The first one will show how within-individual, dynamic, and context-dependent preferences and memory of past interactions could help disentangle different motives underlying reciprocation of advice networks in an organization. The second one will show how the low adoption rate of a critical health preventive measure can be explained by the interplay of positive influence ('complex contagion’) and negative influence in a malaria epicentre.
Speakers
Federico Bianchi
Role: Assistant Professor
Organisation: University of Milan
Francesco Renzini
Role: Postdoctoral Researcher
Organisation: University of Milan
Travel and Contact Information
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G30
Arthur Lewis Building
Manchester
