scholarly journals A breeding pool of ideas: Analyzing interdisciplinary collaborations at the Complex Systems Summer School

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. e0246260
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Brown ◽  
Dakota Murray ◽  
Kyle Furlong ◽  
Emily Coco ◽  
Fabian Dablander
Keyword(s):  
Complex Systems ◽  
Summer School ◽  
Group Composition ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Social And Behavioral Sciences ◽  
Behavioral Sciences ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Social ◽  
Disciplinary Background ◽  
Using Data

Interdisciplinary research is essential for the study of complex systems, and so there is a growing need to understand the factors that facilitate collaboration across diverse fields of inquiry. In this exploratory study, we examine the composition of self-organized project groups and the structure of collaboration networks at the Santa Fe Institute’s Complex Systems Summer School. Using data from all iterations of the summer school from 2005 to 2019, comprising 823 participants and 322 projects, we investigate the factors that contribute to group composition. We first test for homophily with respect to individual-level attributes, finding that group composition is largely consistent with random mixing based on gender, career position, institutional prestige, and country of study. However, we find some evidence of homophilic preference in group composition based on disciplinary background. We then conduct analyses at the level of group projects, finding that project topics from the Social and Behavioral Sciences are over-represented. This could be due to a higher level of baseline interest in, or knowledge of, social and behavioral sciences, or the common application of methods from the natural sciences to problems in the social sciences. Consequently, future research should explore this discrepancy further and examine whether it can be mitigated through policies aimed at making topics in other disciplines more accessible or appealing for collaboration.

scholarly journals A Breeding Pool of Ideas: Analyzing Interdisciplinary Collaborations at the Complex Systems Summer School

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Brown ◽  
Dakota Murray ◽  
Kyle Furlong ◽  
Emily Coco ◽  
Fabian Dablander
Keyword(s):  
Complex Systems ◽  
Summer School ◽  
Group Composition ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Social And Behavioral Sciences ◽  
Behavioral Sciences ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Social ◽  
Disciplinary Background ◽  
Using Data

Interdisciplinary research is essential for the study of complex systems, and so there is a growing need to understand the factors that facilitate collaboration across diverse fields of inquiry. In this exploratory study, we examine the composition of self-organized project groups and the structure of collaboration networks at the Santa Fe Institute's Complex Systems Summer School. Using data from all iterations of the summer school from 2005 to 2019, comprising 824 participants and 321 projects, we investigate the factors that contribute to group composition. We first test for homophily with respect to individual-level attributes, finding that group composition is largely consistent with random mixing based on gender, career position, institutional prestige, and country of study. However, we find some evidence of homophilic preference in group composition based on disciplinary background. We then conduct analyses at the level of group projects, finding that project topics from the Social and Behavioral Sciences are over-represented. This could be due to a higher level of baseline interest in, or knowledge of, social and behavioral sciences, or the common application of methods from the natural sciences to problems in the social sciences. Consequently, future research should explore this discrepancy further and examine whether it can be mitigated through policies aimed at making topics in other disciplines more accessible or appealing for collaboration.

scholarly journals When the Going Gets Tough, How Do We Perceive the Future?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie J. Tepper ◽  
Neil Anthony Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Time Perception ◽  
Integrated Model ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Social And Behavioral Sciences ◽  
Behavioral Sciences ◽  
Intervention Practice ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
Goal Directed Behavior ◽  
Experienced Difficulty

People struggle to stay motivated to work toward difficult goals. Sometimes the feeling of difficulty signals that the goal is important and worth pursuing; other times, it signals that the goal is impossible and should be abandoned. In this paper, we argue that how difficulty is experienced depends on how we perceive and experience the timing of difficult events. We synthesize research from across the social and behavioral sciences and propose a new integrated model to explain how components of time perception interact with interpretations of experienced difficulty to influence motivation and goal-directed behavior. Although these constructs have been studied separately in previous research, we suggest that these factors are inseparable and that an integrated model will help us to better understand motivation and predict behavior. We conclude with new empirical questions to guide future research and by discussing the implications of this research for both theory and intervention practice.

scholarly journals The Position-Reputation-Information (PRI) scale of individual prestige

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard E. W. Berl ◽  
Alarna N. Samarasinghe ◽  
Fiona Jordan ◽  
Michael C. Gavin
Keyword(s):  
Social Institutions ◽  
Measurement Tool ◽  
Social And Behavioral Sciences ◽  
Behavioral Sciences ◽  
Confirmatory Factor Analyses ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Accented Speech ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
And Behavior

Prestige is a key concept across the social and behavioral sciences and has been implicated as an important driver in the processes governing human learning and behavior and the evolution of culture. However, existing scales of prestige fail to account for the full breadth of its potential determinants or focus only on collective social institutions rather than the individual-level perceptions that underpin everyday social interactions. Here, we use open, extensible methods to unite diverse theoretical ideas into a common measurement tool for individual prestige. Participants evaluated the perceived prestige of regional variations in accented speech using a pool of candidate scale items generated from free-listing tasks and a review of published scales. Through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, we find that our resulting 7-item scale, composed of dimensions we term position, reputation, and information, or “PRI,” exhibits good model fit, scale validity, and scale reliability. The PRI scale of individual prestige contributes to the integration of existing lines of theory on the concept of prestige, and the scale’s application in Western contexts and its extensibility to other cultures, serves as a foundation for new theoretical and experimental trajectories across the social and behavioral sciences.

scholarly journals When the Going Gets Tough, How Do We Perceive the Future?

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 526-541
Author(s):  
Stephanie J. Tepper ◽  
Neil A. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Time Perception ◽  
Integrated Model ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Social And Behavioral Sciences ◽  
Behavioral Sciences ◽  
Intervention Practice ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
Goal Directed Behavior ◽  
Experienced Difficulty

People struggle to stay motivated to work toward difficult goals. Sometimes the feeling of difficulty signals that the goal is important and worth pursuing; other times, it signals that the goal is impossible and should be abandoned. In this article, we argue that how difficulty is experienced depends on how we perceive and experience the timing of difficult events. We synthesize research from across the social and behavioral sciences and propose a new, integrated model to explain how components of time perception interact with interpretations of experienced difficulty to influence motivation and goal-directed behavior. Although these constructs have been studied separately in previous research, we suggest that these factors are inseparable and that an integrated model will help us to better understand motivation and predict behavior. We conclude with new empirical questions to guide future research and by discussing the implications of this research for both theory and intervention practice.

scholarly journals The Center Page

2012 ◽  
Vol 45 (04) ◽  
pp. 822-823
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Social And Behavioral Sciences ◽  
Behavioral Sciences ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Grant Programs ◽  
The Social ◽  
Application Requirements

As a result of generous contributions by Association members and friends to the Centennial Campaign, APSA created nine endowments to support a diverse range of grant programs to encourage individual research and writing in all fields of political science and to facilitate collaboration among scholars working within the discipline and across the social and behavioral sciences and humanities. More details on the Centennial Center, these endowments, and application requirements [email protected].

scholarly journals Revisiting Mediation in the Social and Behavioral Sciences

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurelio José Figueredo ◽  
Rafael Antonio Garcia ◽  
Tomás Cabeza de Baca ◽  
Jonathon Colby Gable ◽  
Dave Weise
Keyword(s):  
Social And Behavioral Sciences ◽  
Behavioral Sciences ◽  
The Social
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