ANR-Lab seminar "Intergroup Coherence and Religious Stability: Experience of Building an Agent-Based Model of an Orthodox Religious Community"
Event ended
On June 22 at 3:00 PM, the International Laboratory for Applied Network Research will host a seminar featuring Nikita Obraztsov, a Master's student in Computational Sociology at the European University in St. Petersburg and a Master in Religious Studies at St. Petersburg State University.
\Why do some religious minorities maintain high levels of practiced religiosity in the face of modernization, while others secularize rapidly? The existential security hypothesis accurately describes cross-country differences in religiosity, but fails to explain intra-societal differentiation.
This paper proposes a structural answer: the level of intergroup connectivity between a religious community and the surrounding secular environment functions as a buffer, determining the pace and depth of secularization, independent of theological and cultural characteristics.
To test this hypothesis, an agent-based model based on a stochastic block model was developed, allowing for variation of a single structural parameter, P_cross, while holding all other conditions constant. The model integrates three mechanisms: modernization pressure according to the ESH, the social support buffer, and the dynamics of social influence according to the Defuent model.
The paper will focus on the methodological potential and limitations of the network approach as applied to the study of religious communities.
Seminar language: Russian.
Registration is required to participate.
Date
22 June
15:00