Social process modeling: A comparison of a live and computerized simulation

The extent to which an entirely computerized simulation could recapture the essential decision-making processes involved in a complex, but controlled laboratory exercise using human subjects is examined. A series of analytic simulations of an exercise called PLANS were run on a digital computer. Beginning with simulations based upon entirely random decision processes, greater and greater degrees of “decision making” sophistication were gradually incorporated into the computerized versions of PLANS. Past efforts to simulate human psychological process on a computer—for example, chess playing and music writing programs—have been directed generally at improving the effectiveness of computer programs. In the present study, involving the simulation of social rather than purely psychological processes, the situation appears reversed: computer programs behaved too rationally and efficiently.