The Dialectics between an Individual and His Role

Agents are intelligent entities, situated in an environment and capable of flexible and autonomous behavior. Cognitive agents make use of different cognitive elements and processes in order to choose their behavior. Examples of such cognitive elements include an agent’s beliefs, desires, goals, or his capacities of situation assessment or planning. In general, agents must interact to other agents in order to satisfy their desires. Because agents are not necessarily trustworthy, different mechanisms are used to ensure that the interaction takes place in a coherent manner. For example, an agent might use trust or reputation models to evaluate possible interaction partners (Sabater, 2004) or norms could specify the way agent interaction should be done (Boella and Lesmo, 2002).