Social Reputation: a Mechanism for Flexible Self-Regulation of Multiagent Systems

In this paper, we use multiagent technology for social simulation of sociological micro-macro issues in the domain of electronic marketplaces. We argue that allowing self-interested agents to enable social reputation as a mechanism for flexible self-regulation during runtime can improve the robustness and 'social order' of multiagent systems to cope with various perturbations that arise when simulating open markets (e.g. dynamic modifications of task profiles, scaling of agent populations, agent drop-outs, deviant behaviour). Referring to the sociological theory of Pierre Bourdieu, we provide a multi-level concept of reputation that consists of three different types (image, social esteem, and prestige) and considers reputation as a kind of 'symbolic capital'. Reputation is regarded to be objectified as an observable property and to be incorporated into the agents' mental structures through social practices of communication on different aggregation levels of sociality. We present and analyse selected results of our social simulations and discuss the importance of reputation with regard to the robustness of multiagent simulations of electronic markets.