Computer simulation: The third symbol system

Abstract

The role of computer simulation for theory construction in social psychology needs to be better understood. It should be viewed as a medium through which theoretical propositions can be articulated and predictions can be generated. It is one of several symbol systems available to theorists for expressing theoretical ideas. The first symbol system acquired by students in social psychology is natural language and the second is mathematics. Computer simulation offers a third symbol system. Theorists express their ideas in a program, and a computer is used to facilitate the generation of predictions from the theory-as-program. Five complexities inherent in social behavior have resisted theoretical understanding using the first two symbol systems. They are multiple manifestations of a single latent variable, qualitative cognitive and social structures, models of the linkage between latent variables and their overt expression, the interface between multiple latent variables, and time. The third symbol system, computer simulation, offers a substantial advantage to social psychologists attempting to develop formal theories of complex and interdependent social phenomena.