Boundedly Rational and Emotional Agents Cooperation, Trust and Rumor

Computer-based agents, in various forms, are becoming actively involved in our personal and professional decisions and deliberations. We interact with them; they interact with each other. In this paper we describe a broad Model Social Agent study where we explore how boundedly-rational agents with emotion behave across increasingly social contexts, and the impact of cooperation, trust, rumor, and deception within those contexts. We report the results of an initial set of small simulations that suggest the use of rumor has a beneficial group effect by attenuating the extreme reactions of overly trustful and overly distrustful groups in increasingly uncertain decision environments. This is accomplished by influencing the destruction or the preservation of the coalition.