What is Agent-Based Modeling? (GESIS Guides to Digital Behavioral Data, 21)

This guide offers an introduction to agent-based modeling (ABM), a simulation method used across disciplines to explore emergent behaviors in complex systems. Agent-based models are a powerful tool for exploring potential outcomes grounded in both theoretical and empirical evidence. ABMs shift our perspective to think about the how, asking what mechanisms are responsible for a system’s behavior. The guide starts with an introduction to complexity science and how we can understand social phenomena through that lens. Then, it moves on to discussing ABMs as the method capable of replicating a complex sys-tem idea. This is followed by a description of the available software for agent-based models as well as some training courses. Overall, agent-based models are a computational method can contribute to our understanding of social phenomena by providing possible and plausible outcomes.

Chueca Del Cerro, C. (2026). What is Agent-Based Modeling (GESIS Guides to Digital Behavioral Data, 21). Cologne: GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences. Forthcoming