People, Networks and Neighbours: Understanding Social Dynamics

This course is three weeks long and will help you understand the basic principles of social dynamics. This course is designed to help you find a new way to approach questions about social behavior. You'll be focusing on social mechanisms throughout and will examine how simulations and models can help you understand them. Understanding how individuals' behaviour can have unexpected consequences on a group level or at societal levels will help you to understand the dynamics. The new approach to social phenomena will be based on the underlying mechanisms. You will also learn how models can help you understand social phenomena. The course will also examine how similar social processes can occur in different contexts. You will use a pen-and-paper model as well as a computer simulation to simulate a social mechanism. You'll also learn about the possibilities that computational social sciences (CSS) offer to understand social processes, including modeling and simulations.

The course will focus on simple social processes using models to illustrate how people behave and influence one another. We will be using animations, games-like tools and examples to illustrate these concepts. No programming or mathematical skills are necessary!