Simulating the Formation and Dynamics of the Implicit Attitude; a Social Cognition Study

Abstract

The current study aimed to define some factors contributing to implicit attitude formation mainly in the social interaction context. An agent-based computer simulation of a society including autonomous agents and an attitude object was used to track the implicit attitude progress towards the object. The society could simulate the autonomic behaviors. We provided a complex adaptive system and observed an emergent phenomenon as the formation and dynamics of implicit attitude in the society. Our results suggested that population size and the number of high-impact individuals are important for the formation of implicit attitude in a society. Moreover, when the number of factors affecting agents’ relationships increases, the dynamics of society tended to unpredictability. Our experience showed that diverse autonomous components of a society with implemented simple rules lead to emergent and seemingly organized system behavior, and the pattern of behavior can be affected by communication and environmental stress. Our study attempted to offer some key implications since few theories within the cognitive psychology and sociology have been stated in precise and unambiguous terms.