Agents with Values and Norms in the Ultimatum Game

Agents with Values and Norms in the Ultimatum Game (version 1.0.0)

This model accompanies a paper looking at the role and limits of values and norms for modeling realistic social agents. Based on literature we synthesize a theory on norms and a theory that combines both values and norms. In contrast to previous work, these theories are checked against data on human behavior obtained from a psychological experiment on dividing money: the ultimatum game. We found that agents that act according to a theory that combines both values and norms, produce behavior quite similar to that of humans. Furthermore, we found that this theory is more realistic than theories solely concerned with norms or theories solely concerned with values. However, to explain the amount of money people accept in this ultimatum game we will eventually need an even more realistic theory. We propose that a theory that explains when people exactly choose to use norms instead of values could provide this realism.

Release Notes

Release used to produce results as documented in the accompanied paper.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.comses.net/codebases/8f9f5bfd-6fda-4822-ae3b-d6d8b245521d/releases/1.0.0/