Orient: Introducing Social Exclusion in Agents Group Dynamics

Nowadays, the social exclusion phenomenon is one of the most concerning issues in human societies. If one could build a model simulating it, one could use such model in educational and pedagogical games, to contribute to show people the phenomenon and stimulate their awareness. The idea is to put users in the role of an excluded person, so that they can get in touch and cope with this reality, while trying to fit in the existing groups. The creation of such model requires exploring socio-psychological sciences? theories to understand the phenomenon and related issues. Therefore, we present a brief overview about human characteristics, such as personality, interpersonal attraction, acceptance and exclusion, group identity and interactions, and their application to synthetic characters. Additionally, we have also analyzed existing systems that approach or explore in some way the above characteristics and made an analysis about their strengths and weaknesses. This allowed the creation of a model that incorporates believable agents, with social behaviour and social exclusion simulation in agents? group dynamics. The model was used to create a demonstration scenario, where the users played in the role of an excluded person.