Call for a special issue of the Journal of Environmental Psychology (JEP)

“Social Simulation in Environmental Psychology”

Social simulation has been one of the most interesting methodological developments of the last decades for the behavioral sciences. Social simulation models deal with behavioral and cognitive dynamics, with differentiated social influence, with feedback to (simulated) natural environments, or space. Specifically in environmental psychology, these models can also stimulate collaborations between environmental psychologists and researchers from other disciplines to deal with complex environmental problems.

The goal of this special issue is to provide successful examples of social simulation from the domain of environmental psychology. We encourage the submission of papers with a focus on psychological or behavioral theory in their agent architecture. We strongly prefer empirical data as the basis for the parameterization or the validation of the model. Papers must address a relevant environmental domain.

We invite pre-submissions of 2-page paper proposals from which we will invite full paper submissions. This paper proposal should be submitted directly to the guest editors for this special issue (e-mail addresses below). Full paper submissions will be assessed through the EES website, and will be peer-reviewed. Full papers should follow JEP‘s style guidelines, which basically is APA style.

Accepted papers will be offered the possibility of including video material to demonstrate typical simulation runs. If you supply video and animation files, they will be published online in the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect. The models presented in the papers should be made available on OpenABM (www.openabm.org). Also see the guide for authors at: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-environmental-psychology/ .

Important dates:

• July 15, 2014: Paper proposal of 2 pages (about 1,000 words), sent to the editors (see below)
• August 15, 2014: Notification of acceptance of the proposal
• December 15, 2014: Full papers due

For any further information please contact the editors:

Wander Jager
Groningen Center for Social Complexity Studies (GCSCS)
University of Groningen, The Netherlands
e-mail:  w.jager@rug.nl

Andreas Ernst
Center for Environmental Systems Research (CESR)
University of Kassel, Germany
e-mail:  ernst@cesr.de