Computational Model Library

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This model aims to study the dynamic propagation of individual behaviour within social networks, focusing on how normative expectations (NE) and experiential expectations (EE) jointly influence behavioural decisions. It also explores the long-term effects of different intervention scenarios (such as enhancing visibility, considering indirect social links, and education) on behavioural propagation patterns and the overall behaviour of the group.
The model was developed in NetLogo 6.4. It generates simulated groups based on large-scale survey data, utilizing NetLogo’s CSV, Table, and Matrix extensions. The model also employs the NW extension to enable network analysis functionality.
The model is designed for research “Shaping social norms to promote individual response behavior in public crises: An agent-based modeling approach” in Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 554, 8 April 2026, 148014
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2026.148014

Negotiation Lab 1.0

Julián Arévalo | Published Friday, March 20, 2026

Negotiation Lab 1.0 is an agent-based model of peace negotiations that explores how the parties’ readiness — their motivation and optimism to engage in talks — evolves dynamically throughout the negotiation process. The model reconceptualizes readiness as an adaptive state variable that is continuously updated through feedback from negotiation outcomes, rather than a static precondition assessed at the onset of talks.
The model simulates two parties negotiating a multi-issue agenda. In each round, parties allocate effort to the current sub-issue; outcomes depend on their joint effort and a stochastic component representing external factors. Results feed back into each party’s readiness, shaping subsequent engagement. The negotiation ends either when all agenda items are resolved (agreement) or when a party’s readiness falls below a critical threshold (breakdown).
Key parameters include the initial readiness of each party, agenda structure (balanced, hard, easy, red, or random), type of negotiation (from highly cooperative to highly competitive), and each party’s effort strategy (always high, always low, random, or pseudo tit-for-tat). The model shows that while initial readiness is associated with negotiation outcomes, it is neither necessary nor sufficient to determine them: process variables — the type of interaction, agenda design, and adaptive effort strategies — exert comparatively larger effects on outcomes. Identical initial conditions can produce widely divergent trajectories, illustrating path dependence and sensitivity to feedback dynamics.
The model is implemented in NetLogo 7.0 and is documented using the ODD+D protocol. It is associated with the paper “Beyond Initial Conditions: How Adaptive Readiness Shapes Peace Negotiation Outcomes” (Arévalo, under review).

Gradient Descent Simulation

Ilyes Azouani | Published Wednesday, March 18, 2026

This model visualizes gradient descent optimization - the fundamental algorithm used to train neural networks and other machine learning models. Agents represent different optimization algorithms searching for the minimum of a loss landscape (the “error surface” that ML models try to minimize during training).

The model demonstrates how different optimizer types (SGD, Momentum with different parameters) behave on various loss landscapes, from simple bowls to the notoriously difficult Rosenbrock “banana valley” function. This helps build intuition about why certain optimization algorithms work better than others for different problem geometries.

HOW IT WORKS

A reproducible NetLogo implementation of a spatial attraction-repulsion opinion model with eviction-driven relocation. Agents interact locally, converge with similar neighbors, diverge from dissimilar neighbors, and may evict the most dissimilar neighbor to a random empty location. Parameter sweeps reveal transitions among extremist, mixed, and consensus regimes, with outputs including phase diagrams, opinion distributions, and Moran’s I. The model is intended to reproduce and extend results on how exclusion frequency changes polarization outcomes.

This model implements a coupled opinion-mobility agent-based framework in NetLogo, extending Attraction-Repulsion Model (ARM) dynamics with endogenous migration in continuous 2D space.

Each agent has an opinion s in [0,1] and a spatial position (x,y). Agents interact locally within an interaction radius, with exposure-controlled interaction probability. Opinion updates follow ARM rules: attraction for small opinion distance and repulsion for large distance (tolerance threshold T). After social interaction, agents move according to a social-force mechanism that balances attraction to similar neighbors and avoidance of dissimilar neighbors, controlled by orientation bias (approaching goods vs leaving bads). The model also includes an optional exposure-mobility coupling setting.

Main outputs include polarization (P), spatial assortativity (Moran’s I), mixed-neighbor fraction (f_mix), and good-component count (N_g). The model is designed to study phase behavior of polarization and segregation under mobility and tolerance heterogeneity.

In his 2003 book, Historical Dynamics (ch. 4), Turchin describes and briefly analyzes a spatial ABM of his metaethnic frontier theory, which is essentially a formalization of a theory by Ibn Khaldun in the 14th century. In the model, polities compete with neighboring polities and can absorb them into an empire. Groups possess “asabiya”, a measure of social solidarity and a sense of shared purpose. Regions that share borders with other groups will have increased asabiya do to salient us vs. them competition. High asabiya enhances the ability to grow, work together, and hence wage war on neighboring groups and assimilate them into an empire. The larger the frontier, the higher the empire’s asabiya.
As an empire expands, (1) increased access to resources drives further growth; (2) internal conflict decreases asabiya among those who live far from the frontier; and (3) expanded size of the frontier decreases ability to wage war along all frontiers. When an empire’s asabiya decreases too much, it collapses.  Another group with more compelling asabiya eventually helps establish a new empire.

Forest Logging and Ecosystem Degradation

Carla Guerrero | Published Sunday, February 15, 2026

This model simulates a forest ecosystem affected by human logging. We explore different kind of approaches and their possible consequences for the ecosystem. Loggers can either be responsible or irresponsible, they will either take care to cut trees or not. In turn their actions will have consequences on the quality of the soil, the atmosphere as well as their profit made from logging. In this model we see that even careful management cannot prevent the degradation of the forest ecosystem.

This agent-based model, developed for the study “Online Protest and Repression in Authoritarian Settings,” examines how online protest and repression evolve in authoritarian contexts and how these dynamics affect ordinary users’ attitudes and behavior on social media. The model integrates key theoretical and empirical insights into social media use and core political factors that shape digital contention in authoritarian settings. The following questions are addressed: (1) how online protest–repression dynamics unfold across different levels of authoritarianism and varying compositions of committed accounts, and (2) how ordinary users’ internal propensity to protest and their perceived probability of successful repression change during online protest-repression contestation. The model is evaluated against two empirically grounded macro patterns observed in the real world. The first is enduring protest: online protest becomes dominant as vocal protesters grow to outnumber vocal repressors, shrinking the pool of silent users and stabilizing a pro-protest majority. The second is suppressed protest: online dissent is contained as vocal repression and silence expand in response to protest, yielding a sustained majority of repressive and silent accounts. Together, these dynamics demonstrate how dissenting voices are empowered and suppressed online in authoritarian settings.

Peer reviewed Boyds (NetLogo): Boids That Fight

Oliver M. Haynold | Published Tuesday, January 20, 2026

Boyds (Boids that Fight) is an agent-based model in NetLogo that extends the classic Flocking model with multi-faction competition, a local fight–flight heuristic, and a target locking/“taking” mechanism. The model separates perception (vision) from engagement range (lock distance) and uses per-faction steering bounds to explore how local numerical superiority, sensing, and bounded turning affect victory, losses, and emergent formations.

Software for an agent-based game-theoretic model of the contact hypothesis of prejudice reduction, to accompany “Modeling Prejudice Reduction,” in the Handbook of Computational Social Psychology, adapted from Public Affairs Quarterly 19 (2) 2005.

Displaying 10 of 796 results NetLogo clear search

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