932 citations · 1.2k across the 11 of their papers we have counts for
13 papers
Recommender systems, stigmergy, and the tyranny of popularity
Zackary Okun Dunivin, Paul E. Smaldino
Scientific recommender systems, such as Google Scholar and Web of Science, are essential tools for discovery. Search algorithms that power work through stigmergy, a collective inte…
Assessing How Hate, Counterspeech, and Toxicity Affect Hate Group Newcomers
Daniel Hickey, Matheus Schmitz, Daniel M. T. Fessler +4
Counterspeech has gained attention as a strategy to reduce hate speech on social media. Although previous studies suggest that counterspeech can reduce hate speech, little is known…
Auditing Elon Musk's Impact on Hate Speech and Bots
Daniel Hickey, Matheus Schmitz, Daniel Fessler +3
On October 27th, 2022, Elon Musk purchased Twitter, becoming its new CEO and firing many top executives in the process. Musk listed fewer restrictions on content moderation and rem…
No Love Among Haters: Negative Interactions Reduce Hate Community Engagement
Daniel Hickey, Matheus Schmitz, Daniel Fessler +3
While online hate groups pose significant risks to the health of online platforms and safety of marginalized groups, little is known about what causes users to become active in hat…
Paths to Polarization: How Extreme Views, Miscommunication, and Random Chance Drive Opinion Dynamics
Matthew A. Turner, Paul E. Smaldino
Understanding the social conditions that tend to increase or decrease polarization is important for many reasons. We study a network-structured agent-based model of opinion dynamic…
Cultural Evolution of Categorization
Pablo Andres Contreras Kallens, Rick Dale, Paul E. Smaldino
Categorization is a fundamental function of minds, with wide ranging implications for the rest of the cognitive system. In humans, categories are shared and communicated between mi…
Resilience by Structural Entrenchment: Dynamics of Single-Layer and Multiplex Networks Following Sudden Changes to Tie Costs
Paul E. Smaldino, Raissa D'Souza, Zeev Maoz
We examine a model of network formation in single-layer and multiplex networks in which individuals have positive incentives for social ties, closed triangles, and spillover edges.…
The Natural Selection of Bad Science
Paul E. Smaldino, Richard McElreath
Poor research design and data analysis encourage false-positive findings. Such poor methods persist despite perennial calls for improvement, suggesting that they result from someth…
Evolution of Cooperation Via Covert Signaling
Paul E. Smaldino, Thomas J. Flamson, Richard McElreath
Human sociality depends upon the benefits of mutual aid and extensive communication. However mutual aid is made difficult by the problems of coordinating diverse norms and preferen…
Adoption as a Social Marker: Innovation Diffusion with Outgroup Aversion
Paul E. Smaldino, Marco A. Janssen, Vicken Hillis +1
Social identities are among the key factors driving behavior in complex societies. Signals of social identity are known to influence individual behaviors in the adoption of innovat…
Replication, Communication, and the Population Dynamics of Scientific Discovery
Richard McElreath, Paul E. Smaldino
Many published research results are false, and controversy continues over the roles of replication and publication policy in improving the reliability of research. Addressing these…
Does Learning Imply a Decrease in the Entropy of Behavior?
Paul E. Smaldino
Shannon's information entropy measures of the uncertainty of an event's outcome. If learning about a system reflects a decrease in uncertainty, then a plausible intuition is that l…
Social Conformity Despite Individual Preferences for Distinctiveness
Paul E. Smaldino, Joshua M. Epstein
We demonstrate that individual behaviors directed at the attainment of distinctiveness can in fact produce complete social conformity. We thus offer an unexpected generative mechan…