Rosaria Conte and Frank Dignum: From Social Monitoring to Normative Influence

This paper is intended to analyse the concepts involved in the phenomena of social monitoring and norm-based social influence for systems of normative agents. These are here defined as deliberative agents, representing norms and deciding upon them. Normative agents can use the norms to evaluate others' behaviours and, possibly, convince them to comply with norms. Normative agents contribute to the social dynamics of norms, and more specifically, of norm-based social control and influence. In fact, normative intelligence allows agents to 1. Check the efficacy of the norms (the extent to which a norm is applied in the system in which it is in force), and possibly 2. Urge their fellows to obey the norms. The following issues are addressed: What is norm-based control? Why and how do agents exercise control on one another? What role does it play in the spread of norms?