Collective Behavior From Cells to Societies: Interdisciplinary Research Team Summaries (2015) / Chapter Skim
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IDR Team Summary 2: How would you spend $100 million over the next five years to understand and harness the power of social networks?
IDR Team Summary 2: How would you spend $100 million over the next five years to understand and harness the power of social networks?
Pages 21-34
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From page 21... ...
But these models were also deficient because they ignored within group variation and had little to say about how and why the group influenced individual behavior. The new science of social networks looks at the world in a different way.
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From page 22... ...
The classic problem of distinguishing selection and contextual effects from influence remains, though recent advances suggest that sensitivity and bounds analysis may hold promise. Additionally, basic issues in coping with missing data (missing nodes, ties, covariates, waves)
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From page 23... ...
It is well known that network structure influences many human outcomes, but much less is known about how human behavior alters network structure. For example, the social networks of smokers changed dramatically over the past 40 years as social pressure campaigns marginalized them and public policies forced them into smaller spaces where they were more likely to connect to other smokers.
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From page 24... ...
In particular, how do behaviors themselves alter the shape of social networks? Over time, people who engage in stigmatized or illicit behaviors become more tangential within larger networks, but do they form new networks, and what effect do these have on their behavior?
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From page 25... ...
? How can the principles and approaches of social network research be applied to understand social interactions and cooperation in nonhuman species and groups involving multiple species?
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From page 26... ...
Miller, University of Michigan Ioannis Paschalidis, Boston University Iraj Saniee, Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent IDR TEAM SUMMARY -- GROUP 2A Lindsey Johnston, NAKFI Science Writing Scholar University of Georgia IDR Team 2A was asked to answer the question "how would you spend $100 million over the next five years to understand and harness the power of social networks? " The overall theme of the conference was collective behavior.
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From page 27... ...
They discussed how projects would differ if the funding came from the National Science Foundation versus the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, National Institutes of Health, or a private organization. However, despite these differences, the team understood that they could narrow down the scope of potential expenditure to maximize the ultimate impact; for that, they needed to focus on the fundamental of social networks.
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From page 28... ...
Exactly how this would be accomplished technologically remains an important matter for study. An example of resilience that the team came up with was how networks can help people survive; during the Iraq war, people relied on their established social networks, as well as newly created networks with people living outside Iraq, to help them determine when it was safe to leave their homes.
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From page 29... ...
All of these issues relate to societal impacts and public good. Harnessing the Power of Social Networks for the Public Good When they first examined this topic, the IDR team discussed using social networks to improve communication during crises such as natural disasters, mitigating the spread of epidemics, and using the power of social networks for counterterrorism, conflict resolution, and education.
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From page 30... ...
Jasny, Science/AAAS Challa Kumar, Louisiana State University Chris McGee, University of Georgia Ziad W Munson, Lehigh University Wenying Shou, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center Jennifer Vanos, Texas Tech University Raffaele Vardavas, RAND IDR TEAM SUMMARY -- GROUP 2B Christopher McGee, NAKFI Science Writing Scholar University of Georgia ".
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From page 31... ...
The team saw the need to craft a question broad enough to capture the imaginative investors or funders in the event that there are enough good ideas to justify spending $100 million on research on social networks. The question developed would be a counter question to the research challenge question and intentionally tackle the key words that drive the research.
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From page 32... ...
The third example of the complexity of social networks was disaster response systems. The IDR team wanted to understand the permeation of information in these networks to further study the behavior of individuals who respond to disasters.
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From page 33... ...
The IDR team also found it necessary to define why artificial networks should be studied when measuring the power of social networks to produce data that are particularly relevant to humans. The team finds that human systems are unpredictable and the complexity and attributes of human behavior need to be measured precisely.
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From page 34... ...
Researchers in the workshop would hope to develop a possible research program. The workshop will be the first step in building an interdisciplinary community of researchers who can effectively propose research that aims to understand and harness the power of social networks.
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