Publications

Wijermans, N., Schill, C., Lindahl, T., Schlüter, M. 2022. Combining approaches: Looking behind the scenes of integrating multiple types of evidence from controlled behavioural experiments through agent-based modelling. International Journal of Social Research Methodology. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2022.2050120

Understanding complex (social) phenomena benefits from combining different tools, perspectives, expertise, and experiences. Research designs that combine approaches are gaining in popularity. Carrying out research in interdisciplinary teams, however, is a challenging, high-investment activity. Unawareness of and reflecting on conflicting ways of seeing or studying the world may endanger project success. Agent-based modelling h...

Wijermans, N., Verhagen, H. & Lytter, A. 2021. An Online Implementation of a Virtual Agent-Based Experiment Tool—An Exploration. In Advances in Social Simulation (eds. P. Ahrweiler & M. Neumann), Springer Proceedings in Complexity, Springer International Publishing, pp.291–297.

This chapter is part of a book based on the conference proceedings of ESSA 2013, the 9th Conference of the European Social Simulation Association. ESSA conferences constitute annual events, which serve as an international platform for the exchange of ideas and discussion of cutting-edge research in the field of social simulations, both from the theoretical as well as applied perspective. This book consists of 33 articles, whic...

Scholz, G., Eberhard, T., Ostrowski, R. & Wijermans, N. 2021. Social Identity in Agent-Based Models: Exploring the State of the Art. In Springer Proceedings in Complexity, pp. 59–64.

Schlüter, M., Lindkvist, E., Wijermans, N. & Polhill, G. 2021. Agent-based modelling. In: Biggs et al. (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods for Social-Ecological Systems, Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 383–397.

This chapter is part of The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods for Social-Ecological Systems which provides a synthetic guide to the range of methods that can be employed in social-ecological systems (SES) research. The book is primarily targeted at graduate students, lecturers and researchers working on SES, and has been written in a style that is accessible to readers entering the field from a variety of different disci...

Constantino, S., Schlüter, M., Weber, E., Wijermans, N.. 2021. Cognition and behavior in context: a framework and theories to explain natural resource use decisions in social-ecological systems. Sustainability Science. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11625-021-00989-w

The complex, context-dependent, and dynamic nature of human behavior is increasingly recognized as both an important cause of sustainability problems and potential leverage for their solution. Human beings are diverse, as are the social, ecological, and institutional settings in which they are embedded. Despite this recognition and extensive knowledge about human decision-making in the behavioral sciences, empirical analysis,...

Wijermans, N., Verhagen, H., Lytter, A.. 2021. An Online Implementation of a Virtual Agent-Based Experiment Tool—An Exploration. Springer Proceedings in Complexity. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61503-1_29

Social simulation targets social science problems and challenges, of theoretical, empirical and applied nature, using simulation. This implies contributing to the development of theory/explanations of social phenomena or using existing theories and models to understand or predict outcomes of social processes. The different uses of social simulation and the different roles it can play in the research process make it the Swiss a...

Scholz, G., Eberhard, T., Ostrowski, R., Wijermans, N.. 2021. Social Identity in Agent-Based Models — Exploring the State of the Art. Springer Proceedings in Complexity. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61503-1_6

A key challenge in social simulation is how to represent human behavior, specifically in its social context. The Social Identity approach (SIA) reflects a promising potential as it describes how people behave while being part of a group, how groups interact and how these interactions and ‘appropriate group behaviors’ can change over time. SIA is used in a variety of fields and increasingly implemented in agent-based models. A...

Verhagen, H., Borit, M., Bravo, G. and Wijermans, N., 2020. Advances in Social Simulation.

Since the first larger scale conferences in the early 1990s, social simulation has rapidly evolved into becoming a methodology known by researchers and practitioners in different areas including sociology, political science, economics, history, and ecology, to name a few. Each of these disciplines has to address what sociologists call the micro-macro link – how individual decision-making entities interact to produce effects at...

Wijermans, N. and O’Neill, E.D., 2020. Towards Modelling Interventions in Small-Scale Fisheries. In Advances in Social Simulation (pp. 485-489). Springer, Cham.

Interventions often have unintended effects, particularly when they target outcomes in complex social-ecological systems (SES), such as fisheries. Development agencies strive for ‘doing development differently’, because past efforts have often been unsuccessful. The question then is how to do better. Science can make a major contribution here. Its power lies in synthesising and generalising knowledge embedded in ‘thinking tool...

Wijermans, N., W. J. Boonstra, K. Orach, J. Hentati-Sundberg, and M. Schlüter. 2020. Behavioural diversity in fishing—Towards a next generation of fishery models. Fish and Fisheries 00:1–19.

Despite improved knowledge and stricter regulations, numerous fish stocks remain overharvested. Previous research has shown that fisheries management may fail when the models and assessments used to inform management are based on unrealistic assumptions regarding fishers' decision‐making and responses to policies. Improving the understanding of fisher behaviour requires addressing its diversity and complexity through the integ...