Models of Social Dynamics
Module Designer
Paul E. Smaldino
Associate Professor
Department of Cognitive and Information Sciences
University of California, Merced
Email: [email protected]
Web: http://smaldino.com/
Twitter: @psmaldino
What I do
I study how psychological and behavioral traits emerge and evolve in response to social, cultural, and ecological pressures, as well as how those pressures can themselves evolve. I also have broad interests related to cultural evolution, cooperation, and complex systems. Much of my work involves building mathematical models and computer simulations to generate and test hypotheses. Some of my current projects involve the emergence of signaling strategies for social identities, socioecological influences on personality development, the evolution of cooperation, the evolution of analogies, and population dynamics of scientific communities.
This project was supported by Grant #61105 from the John Templeton Foundation to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (PIs: S. Gavrilets and P. J. Richerson) with assistance from the Center for the Dynamics of Social Complexity and the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
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