Exploring the Impact of Reflexivity Theory and Cognitive Social Structures on the Dynamics of Doctor-Patient Social System

TL;DR

This paper compares traditional and reflexivity-based models of doctor-patient interactions, showing that incorporating cognitive social structures reveals complex behaviors and potential deviations from intended social system functions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel model integrating reflexivity theory and cognitive social structures into social system analysis, enhanced by genetic algorithm optimization.

Findings

Reflexivity-based model captures complex social behaviors.

Models suggest social systems may deviate from designed purposes.

Cognitive influences affect decision-making in social agents.

Abstract

Conventional economic and socio-behavioural models assume perfect symmetric access to information and rational behaviour among interacting agents in a social system. However, real-world events and observations appear to contradict such assumptions, leading to the possibility of other, more complex interaction rules existing between such agents. We investigate this possibility by creating two different models for a doctor-patient system. One retains the established assumptions, while the other incorporates principles of reflexivity theory and cognitive social structures. In addition, we utilize a microbial genetic algorithm to optimize the behaviour of the physician and patient agents in both models. The differences in results for the two models suggest that social systems may not always exhibit the behaviour or even accomplish the purpose for which they were designed and that modelling the social and cognitive influences in a social system may capture various ways a social agent balances complementary and competing information signals in making choices.