Abstract for: Psychology Roundtable and Psychology SIG Annual Meeting

Our roundtable will focus on epistemological issues of including psychological constructs in formulation, simulating, and validating system dynamics (SD) models. We will discuss the epistemological basis of SD models in general, with emphasis on social and psychological variables. Psychological variables and social processes can (1) be used in dynamic models to lead to better understanding of the causes of the problem and (2) can enhance the field of psychology by developing dynamic models of social processes, per se. A variety of strategies for integrating psychological and other information variables will be presented, with general discussion about the utility of iterative deliberation via group model building and other qualitative research techniques.