Endogenous Human Behaviors in a Pneumonic Plague Simulation: Psychological BehavioralTheories as Small “Generic” Models

摘要

This report builds on a previous epidemiological model of a pneumonic plague outbreak thatincorporated three behavioral responses as exogenous drivers and evaluated their importance inallowing us to replicate the actual outbreak (Heinbokel& Potash, ISDC-2003). The current paperdescribes our subsequent efforts to incorporate those critical and controlling behavioraldimensions into this model as critical feedback loops. We conceptually deconstructed the eventinto four segments: becoming aware of the outbreak, deciding to act in response, choosing aspecific response, and returning to normal behavior. We utilized current psychological theories,such as the “Psychometric Paradigm” and “Brunswik’s Lens Model,” to build small,conceptually clear, transferable, and combinable behavioral submodels to simulate the first threesegments involving information and social networks, social trust, and risk perceptions. Webelieve these modeling efforts comprise first steps in a critical process of translating current,frequently static, risk theories to dynamically responsive vehicles that can be flexibly andquantitatively applied to reliably aid in understanding and influencing responses to such publichealth threats, other extreme events, and other dynamic risk scenarios in general.