The nature of the social agent*

Abstract

We pose the question, What is necessary to build an artificial social agent? Current theories of cognition provide an analytical tool for peeling away what is understood about individual cognition so as to reveal wherein lies the social. We fractionate a set of agent characteristics to describe a Model Social Agent. The fractionation matrix is, itself, a set of increasingly inclusive models, each one a more adequate description of the social agent required by the social sciences. The fractionation reflects limits to the agent's information‐processing capabilities and enrichment of the mental models used by the agent. Together, limited capabilities and enriched models, enable the agent to be social. The resulting fractionation matrix can be used for analytic purposes. We use it to examine two social theories—Festinger's Social Comparison Theory and Turner's Social Interaction Theory—to determine how social such theories are and from where they derive their social action.