Using sociometers to quantify social interaction patterns
Research on human social interactions has traditionally relied on self-reports. Despite their widespread use, self-reported accounts of behaviour are prone to biases and necessarily reduce the range of behaviours, and the number of subjects, that may be studied simultaneously. The development of eve...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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Nature Publishing Group
2014
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/89463 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8053-9983 |
| _version_ | 1826216770884599808 |
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| author | Onnela, Jukka-Pekka Schnorf, Sebastian Lazer, David Waber, Benjamin Nathan Pentland, Alex Paul |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Laboratory |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Laboratory Onnela, Jukka-Pekka Schnorf, Sebastian Lazer, David Waber, Benjamin Nathan Pentland, Alex Paul |
| author_sort | Onnela, Jukka-Pekka |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Research on human social interactions has traditionally relied on self-reports. Despite their widespread use, self-reported accounts of behaviour are prone to biases and necessarily reduce the range of behaviours, and the number of subjects, that may be studied simultaneously. The development of ever smaller sensors makes it possible to study group-level human behaviour in naturalistic settings outside research laboratories. We used such sensors, sociometers, to examine gender, talkativeness and interaction style in two different contexts. Here, we find that in the collaborative context, women were much more likely to be physically proximate to other women and were also significantly more talkative than men, especially in small groups. In contrast, there were no gender-based differences in the non-collaborative setting. Our results highlight the importance of objective measurement in the study of human behaviour, here enabling us to discern context specific, gender-based differences in interaction style. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:53:10Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/89463 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:53:10Z |
| publishDate | 2014 |
| publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/894632022-10-03T08:54:13Z Using sociometers to quantify social interaction patterns Onnela, Jukka-Pekka Schnorf, Sebastian Lazer, David Waber, Benjamin Nathan Pentland, Alex Paul Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Laboratory Program in Media Arts and Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Waber, Benjamin Nathan Pentland, Alex Paul Research on human social interactions has traditionally relied on self-reports. Despite their widespread use, self-reported accounts of behaviour are prone to biases and necessarily reduce the range of behaviours, and the number of subjects, that may be studied simultaneously. The development of ever smaller sensors makes it possible to study group-level human behaviour in naturalistic settings outside research laboratories. We used such sensors, sociometers, to examine gender, talkativeness and interaction style in two different contexts. Here, we find that in the collaborative context, women were much more likely to be physically proximate to other women and were also significantly more talkative than men, especially in small groups. In contrast, there were no gender-based differences in the non-collaborative setting. Our results highlight the importance of objective measurement in the study of human behaviour, here enabling us to discern context specific, gender-based differences in interaction style. 2014-09-12T15:45:43Z 2014-09-12T15:45:43Z 2014-07 2013-05 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 2045-2322 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/89463 Onnela, Jukka-Pekka, Benjamin N. Waber, Alex Pentland, Sebastian Schnorf, and David Lazer. “Using Sociometers to Quantify Social Interaction Patterns.” Sci. Rep. 4 (July 15, 2014). https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8053-9983 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep05604 Scientific Reports Creative Commons Attribution http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ application/pdf Nature Publishing Group Nature Publishing Group |
| spellingShingle | Onnela, Jukka-Pekka Schnorf, Sebastian Lazer, David Waber, Benjamin Nathan Pentland, Alex Paul Using sociometers to quantify social interaction patterns |
| title | Using sociometers to quantify social interaction patterns |
| title_full | Using sociometers to quantify social interaction patterns |
| title_fullStr | Using sociometers to quantify social interaction patterns |
| title_full_unstemmed | Using sociometers to quantify social interaction patterns |
| title_short | Using sociometers to quantify social interaction patterns |
| title_sort | using sociometers to quantify social interaction patterns |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/89463 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8053-9983 |
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