Conference proceeding
MOVING TARGETS: HOW CONSUMERS CHANGE VALUE SYSTEMS THROUGH INTERACTION WITH DESIGNED PRODUCTS AND OTHER CONSUMERS
ICED 15, VOL 11: HUMAN BEHAVIOUR IN DESIGN, DESIGN EDUCATION
01 Jan 2015
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Designers need to understand the role of social influence between consumers as an endogenous process of shaping value systems, and within the larger framework of indirect mutual influence on value systems of both consumers and designers. This paper presents the results of computational experiments on the effects of social influence on individual and systemic behaviour of modelling consumers as situated cognitive agents in a product-consumer environment. Paired experiments were performed with identical initial conditions to compare the behaviour of social agents with non-social agents. Experiment results show that social agents are more productive in consuming available products, both in terms of aggregate unit consumption and aggregate utility. But this comes at a cost of individual average utility per unit consumed. In effect, social interaction achieved higher productivity by 'lowering the standards' of individual consumers. While still at an early stage of development, such an agent-based model laboratory is shown to be an effective research tool to investigate rich collective behaviour in the context of demanding cognitive tasks such as design innovation.
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Details
- Title
- MOVING TARGETS: HOW CONSUMERS CHANGE VALUE SYSTEMS THROUGH INTERACTION WITH DESIGNED PRODUCTS AND OTHER CONSUMERS
- Creators
- Russell C. Thomas - George Mason UniversityJohn S. Gero - George Mason University
- Contributors
- C Weber (Editor)S Husung (Editor)G Cascini (Editor)M Cantamessa (Editor)D Marjanovic (Editor)M Bordegoni (Editor)
- Publication Details
- ICED 15, VOL 11: HUMAN BEHAVIOUR IN DESIGN, DESIGN EDUCATION
- Series
- International Conference on Engineering Design
- Publisher
- Design Soc
- Number of pages
- 10
- Resource Type
- Conference proceeding
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Psychological and Brain Sciences (Psychology)
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000366321300005
- Other Identifier
- 991022202937304721
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
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Source: SDGs in the Output
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Education, Scientific Disciplines
- Engineering, Industrial
- Engineering, Manufacturing