The Friendship Field - an Agent-Based Model on Dyadic Friendship Formation Driven by Social Battery

Chrisja Naomi van de Kieft, Eva Margretha Timmer*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference paperAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Humans have an intrinsic need for friendship, especially in adolescence when entering a new social environment where they do not know anybody. The question as to how friendships form is frequently asked. In research, three important factors have been identified in the formation of friendship: extraversion, resemblance and social status. To our best knowledge, a missing aspect in current research on friendship formation is the concept of “social battery”. The social battery comprehends an individuals’ energy level to engage in social contact. When the social battery is exhausted, it can prevent an individual from social contact, and consequently from making new friends. The recharging and exhaustion of the social battery heavily depends on the person’s extraversion level. In this paper, we develop an agent-based model “the Friendship Field” that simulates real-life dyadic friendship formation where the individuals’ interactions are motivated by their social battery. With this model, we investigate emergent patterns regarding extraversion, resemblance and status. The model reproduces a pattern of the mere-exposure-effect, an existing theory on friendship formation. Moreover, it proposes a new factor for friendship formation in social sciences: the social battery.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAdvances in Social Simulation - Proceedings of the 17th Social Simulation Conference, European Social Simulation Association
EditorsFlaminio Squazzoni
PublisherSpringer
Pages299-311
Number of pages13
ISBN (Print)9783031349195
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 30 Sept 2023
Event17th annual conference of European Social Simulation Association, ESSA 2022 - Milan, Italy
Duration: 12 Sept 202216 Sept 2022

Publication series

NameSpringer Proceedings in Complexity
ISSN (Print)2213-8684
ISSN (Electronic)2213-8692

Conference/symposium

Conference/symposium17th annual conference of European Social Simulation Association, ESSA 2022
Country/TerritoryItaly
CityMilan
Period12/09/2216/09/22

Keywords

  • Agent-based model (ABM)
  • Extraversion
  • Friendship
  • Resemblance
  • Social battery
  • Status

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