In Search of Mechanisms. The Role of the Agent-Based Model in connecting Analytical Sociology and Classical Social Research: the Case of Merton’s Theory of Values Homophily

If the aim is to construct generative models to explain the generation of macro-outcomes, the best strategies are those that were put forward and explored by the Analytical Sociology movement in the past decade. These strategies concern a particular conception of the characteristics of action theory, and a conception of generative explanations constructed through Agent-Based Modeling. By virtue of their flexibility, these models allow a better modeling of the characteristics of the logics of action, of structural interdependency and of the generation of macro-outcomes. In order to test their flexibility, we have decided to apply the strategy based on ABM to a classic example of empirical social research (represented by the theory of homophily of values formulated by Merton, and its methodological formalization carried out by Lazarsfeld), modeling the possible effects of network-related mechanisms on the generation of macro-outcomes.