Computer simulation: the third symbol system
Computer simulation: the third symbol system
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计算机模拟：第三种符号系统
DOI：
10.1016/0022-1031(88)90027-3
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发表时间：
1988
影响因子：
3.5
通讯作者：
T. Ostrom
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
T. Ostrom
需要更好地理解计算机模拟在社会心理学理论构建中的作用。它应该被视为一种媒介，通过它可以阐明理论命题，并可以产生预测。它是理论家用来表达理论思想的几种符号系统之一。学生在社会心理学中获得的第一个符号系统是自然语言，第二个符号系统是数学。计算机模拟提供了第三种符号系统。理论家用程序来表达他们的想法，而计算机则用来帮助从作为程序的理论中生成预测。社会行为中固有的五个复杂性阻碍了使用前两个符号系统的理论理解。它们是单个潜变量的多种表现形式，定性认知和社会结构，潜变量及其显性表达之间联系的模型，多个潜变量之间的界面，以及时间。第三个符号系统，计算机模拟，为社会心理学家试图发展复杂和相互依赖的社会现象的正式理论提供了实质性的优势。
The role of computer simulation for theory construction in social psychology needs to be better understood. It should be viewed as a medium through which theoretical propositions can be articulated and predictions can be generated. It is one of several symbol systems available to theorists for expressing theoretical ideas. The first symbol system acquired by students in social psychology is natural language and the second is mathematics. Computer simulation offers a third symbol system. Theorists express their ideas in a program, and a computer is used to facilitate the generation of predictions from the theory-as-program. Five complexities inherent in social behavior have resisted theoretical understanding using the first two symbol systems. They are multiple manifestations of a single latent variable, qualitative cognitive and social structures, models of the linkage between latent variables and their overt expression, the interface between multiple latent variables, and time. The third symbol system, computer simulation, offers a substantial advantage to social psychologists attempting to develop formal theories of complex and interdependent social phenomena.