Social-Behavioral Modeling for Complex Systems

7 A Neural Network Model of Motivated Decision‐Making in Everyday Social Behavior

Stephen J. Read¹ and Lynn C. Miller^2,3

¹ Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 90089, USA

² Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

³ Department of Communication and Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90007, USA

Introduction

Our aim is to model everyday motivated decision‐making over time as grounded in the motivational dynamics of the individual. These motivational dynamics arise from organized motivational systems within the individual interacting with the social and physical environment, as well as with the internal environment of the individual. A particular focus of our model is on capturing individual differences in motivation and decision‐making and the underlying neurobiological mechanisms that are responsible for those individual differences. The model we discuss is implemented as a neural network model.

One benefit of our model is that it provides a framework that allows researchers to create a relatively lightweight set of psychological mechanisms for an agent that can quickly and efficiently generate a wide range of plausible behaviors. At the same time, because the model is firmly grounded in a wide array of research and theory, it provides a psychologically and neurobiologically plausible account of these mechanisms.

Much, if not most, ...