Modeling Social Behavior

“An important contribution to the field of social dynamics.”—Adriana A. Maldonado-Chaparro, The Quarterly Review of Biology“The book has social science, it has code, it has graphs—it’s got everything. It’s an old-school textbook with modern materials, and I hope it’s taught in thousands of classes and sells a zillion copies.”—Andrew Gelman, Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science Blog“Highly engaging and ambitious… . Modeling Social Behavior will be especially valuable for students who seek a comprehensive introduction to the field of social behavioral modeling… . Even if you are a modeler who feels sufficiently acquainted with agent-based modeling, and even if you have no intention of teaching a course on the topic, I still encourage you to take a look at Modeling Social Behavior. Smaldino’s carefully crafted and evolutionarily inspired book may push you, like it did me, to critically engage with his theoretical assumptions, and critically reflect about yours.”—Amir Goldberg, Contemporary Sociology“This book is poised to become a foundational text for the future of quantitative and computational social science.”—Bhavya Deepti Vadavalli, Human Ethology“The quirky and fun textbook Modeling Social Behavior by Paul E. Smaldino guides an inexperienced audience through a landscape of agent-based and mathematical models of social systems… . [It] would be an excellent textbook for an experienced social scientist wanting to learn modeling approaches, for an instructor of a course-based undergraduate research experience in modeling social systems, and for an experienced math modeler wanting a masterclass on effective communication in the field.””—Sara Clifton, SIAM Review

Paul E. Smaldino is professor of cognitive and information sciences at the University of California, Merced, and external professor at the Santa Fe Institute.