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Instructors: Leonie Geyer
Event type:
Seminar / exercise
Org-unit: Sociology, Politics & Economics
Displayed in timetable as:
Advanced Methods | V
Hours per week:
1,5
Credits:
3,0
Location:
Campus der Zeppelin Universität
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
4 | 35
Priority scheme: Standard-Priorisierung
Course content:
The Covid-19 pandemic has not only presented unprecedented challenges but has also underscored the critical importance of understanding and modeling disease spread within complex social systems. This heightened awareness prompts us to delve into pressing questions of our time, encompassing topics ranging from disease transmission to political polarization and the maintenance of cooperation.
In response to this imperative, this course adopts an interdisciplinary approach to model social behavior, drawing insights from across the social sciences and evolutionary ecology. The focal point of this module revolves around formal models—mathematical and computational tools designed to simulate complex processes. You will learn how to build a model from the ground up and how to analyze and understand the results of a model using the NetLogo language. The material for this course is inherently interdisciplinary. We will cover models on topics that should be of interest to almost anyone who studies social behavior.
We cover:
- models of contagion: how diseases can spread from person to person?
- models of opinion dynamics: when does opinion formation lead to consensus, polarization and fragmentation?
- cooperation: how can cooperation emerge in a population? Once present, how can it be maintained?
Educational objective:
After this course:
- you will be able to understand and analyze complex dynamics using formal mathematical and computational models.
- you will gain the capability to construct and analyze simulations using the NetLogo programming language.
Further information about the exams:
Endterm: I expect participants to showcase their understanding of social behavior by writing a short seminar paper. Therefore you need to build and analyze models using the NetLogo language.
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