Taking Control of Your Bonding: Controlled Social Network Adaptation Using Mental Models

In this chapter, the role of subjective elements and control in social network adaptation is analysed computationally. In particular, it is analysed: (1) how the coevolution of social contagion and bonding by homophily may be controlled by the persons involved, and (2) how subjective representation states (e.g., what they know) can play a role in this coevolution and its control. To address this, a second-order adaptive social network model is presented in which persons do have a form of control over the coevolution process, and, in relation to this, their bonding depends on their subjective representation states about themselves and about each other, and social contagion depends on their subjective representation states about their connections