modeling aggression & bullying: a complex systems approach george mudrak university of colorado...

Modeling Aggression & Bullying: A Complex Systems Approach

George MudrakUniversity of Colorado at Colorado Springs

November 1st, 2013

Introduction

• George Mudrak, graduate student at University of Colorado at Colorado Springs working on my MS in CS.

• My thesis topic: Modeling Aggression & Bullying: A Complex Systems Approach.

• My Committee: • Sudhanshu Semwal• Edward Chow• Chuan Yue• Bonnie Snyder

George Mudrak University of Colorado at Colorado Springs

Modeling Aggression & Bullying: A Complex Systems Approach November 1st, 2013

Definitions

• Bullying (aggression) : repeated, unwanted, aggressive behavior that involves a real or perceived power imbalance.

• Complex System : ‘a system in which large networks of components with no central control and simple rules of operation give rise to complex collective behavior, sophisticated information processing, and adaptation via learning or evolution’.



Why Aggression and Bullying?

• Can have severe consequences.• It is pandemic

• Playground, classroom, office politics, hazing.• Companies, Apple vs. Samsung.• Countries, US vs. the planet.• Cultures.

• I, and people I care about have been bullied.



If it is this Common…

• …why is it so hard to study?

• Well known experiments.• Philip Zimbardo, “Stanford Prison Experiment”.• Jane Elliot, “bown eyes, blue eyes”.

• Unethical and immoral.• Impossible to ‘reset’, posteriori knowledge.• Observations and after the fact.

How Can We Explore this?

• Complex Systems Modeling (CSM).• Simulated world.

• Actors / agents.• Very resource effective.

• Emergent behaviors.• Non-deterministically coded.• Arise from local interactions.

• Wide usage today in industry.• Electrical power, city planning, social modeling,

population studies, animal behaviors, etc.



What am I interested In?

• Emergent phenomena from simple rules of behavior.• Effects of aggression and bullying.• Effectiveness of coercive agents at preventing

bullying.• Effects of changing behavioral parameters.



The Plan

• Create a virtual world populated with ‘people’.• Support differences among the population.• Define basic behaviors and causality.• Provide a user interface facilitating modeler specified

world parameter values.



Outcomes?

• A virtual world where basic behavioral rules yield emergent behavior.

• Verification of bullying and aggression.• A model that can hopefully be used by other interested

people.

Platform

• Hardware• 2009 27” Apple iMac, 2.8GHz core i7 with 32 GB RAM and

an ATI Radeon HD 4850 512 MB RAM video card.• OS X 10.8.4

• Modeling Software• NetLogo 3D, v5.0.4, created by Uri Wilensky.

http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/




Design

• A virtual world • Contain actors

• Actors• Autonomous – actors have goals and the means to

achieve them. • Attributes – actors possess qualities such as strength,

hunger, energy levels, etc.• Behaviors – actors possess basic behavioral rules.



The Actors

• People • Life within world.• Attack other people when they are hungry.

• Coercers• The worlds ‘enforcers’.

• Food• Passive.• Exists to supply energy to people.

• Alternative to attacking others, if it’s present.



People

• All have ‘energy’ that depletes over time• Hunger • Strength• Aggression

• Base behavior, hunger.• When hungry, find weaker prey and attack.



Coercers and Food

• Coercers• Presence acts as a deterrent based on authority.• Punish bullies they catch.

• Food• Passive actor. • Exists to provide energy source for even weakest of

people.• Never runs out of ‘energy’.



Perception & Movement Models

• Perception algorithms.• Everyone.• Hamming distance.

• Movement algorithms.• No movement.• Move away.• Tower.



Aggression & Defense Models

• Aggression algorithms.• Random prey.• Minimum defense, prey.

• Defensive algorithms.• Individual.• Group average.• Tower.



Simulations

Population: 2,500 Tolerance: 5

Vision: 4 Coercers: 0%

Food: 0

Minimum defense food model No discriminators model

No empowerment model Individual defense model

Move away movement model

Baseline Simulation



With Food



Food: 10

With Coercers



Food: 0 Coercers: 1%

Coercer vision: 4 Coercer authority: 30%

With Coercers



Coercer authority: 100%

With Food



Food: 2 Coercer authority: 20%

Hamming distance discriminator Hamming bias enforcement

Defensive Learning



Defensive buff empowerment

Defensive Learning

Stalking Emerges



Observations

• Core population attributes were consistent.• Desire, hunger, strength, aggression.

• Behavioral algorithms had an impact.• Similarity / dissimilarity evident.• Emergent behavior !!

• Stalking.• Safe zones, i.e. no bully zones.• Aggressive “flocking”• Rubber-banding. i.e. returning to feed.



Conclusions

• We can create a complex system that provides a model where digital people can realistically bully and defend against bullying.

• Analysis shows that core baseline population averages are consistent regardless of behavioral models. This means changes are the result of selected models.

• And especially, we saw emergent behavior such as returning to prey, stalking, co-located aggression, and emergence of “no bully zones”.



Future Work

• Coercers mobility.• Random visual distances.• Gang aggression.• Better ‘walking’ algorithms.• Greater variation in metabolism.• Regeneration.• Use of avatars instead of 3D points and simulated in

spatial constraints such as buildings, geography, etc.

Demo



Questions…



Thesis References I• Jing Wang, Ronald Iannotti, Tonja Nansel, School Bullying Among Adolescents in the

United States: Physical, Verbal, Relational, and Cyber Journal of Adolescent Health, p. 368 (2009)

• Gilbert, Nigel, Agent-Based Models, Series: Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences, SAGE Publications, p. 3. (2008)

• Gilbert, Nigel, Agent-Based Models, Series: Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences, SAGE Publications, 2008. p. 3-6.

• Mitchell, Melanie, Complexity A Guided Tour, Oxford University Press, 2009. p. 12-13.

• Gilbert, Nigel, Agent-Based Models, Series: Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences, SAGE Publications, 2008. p. 14-16.

• Epstein, Joshua M., Axtell, Robert, Growing Artificial Societies - Social Science from the Bottom Up, Brookings Institution Press, 1996.

• Epstein, Joshua M., Generative Social Science - Studies in Agent-Based Computational Modeling, Princeton University Press, 2006. p. 247-270.



Thesis References II• Anonymous. What is cyberpunk? Cyberpunked: Journal of Science, Technology, &

Society. Retrieved from http://www.cyberpunked.org/cyberpunk/, 2009• Anonymous. StopBullying.gov http://www.stopbullying.gov/what-is-bullying/definition/

, 2013.• Epstein, Joshua M., Axtell, Robert, Growing Artificial Societies - Social Science from

the Bottom Up, Brookings Institution Press, 1996. p.141• Gilbert, Nigel, Agent-Based Models, Series: Quantitative Applications in the Social

Sciences, SAGE Publications, 2008. p. 31.• Epstein, Joshua M., Axtell, Robert, Growing Artificial Societies - Social Science from

the Bottom Up, Brookings Institution Press, 1996. p.79.• Wilensky, U. 1999. NetLogo. http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/. Center for

Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling, Northwestern University. Evanston, IL.

• Mudrak, George, Semwal, Sudhanshu Kumar, AgentCity - An Agent-Based Modeling Approach to City Planning and Population Dynamics. International Conference on Collaboration Technologies and Systems (CTS), 2012. p. 91-96.



http://www.cyberpunked.org/cyberpunk/

http://www.stopbullying.gov/what-is-bullying/definition/


modeling aggression & bullying: a complex systems approach george mudrak university of colorado...

Documents

complex systems modeling

effects of aggression

verification of bullying

social modeling

complex collective behavior

modeling software netlogo

introduction george

behaviors actors