A Modelling Framework for Societal Systems

Abstract

The present chapter presents a coherent theoretical framework for modelling individual and collective behavior based on the four fundamental hypotheses that

• the composite behavior of societal systems can be properly approximated by the interaction of a few dominant, often abstract, “actor” systems;

• the behavior of an actor system is the result of a complex information processing sequence whose basic structure is identical across actor systems;

• behavior of actor systems is governed by reference to a set of basic orienting dimensions “orientors”, whose dimensions are identical across actor systems;

• the processes determining behavior of actor systems are driven mainly by a (generalized) mechanism of dissonance removal.