Showing papers by "Michael W. Macy published in 2015"
TL;DR: The authors show that the self-reinforcing dynamics of homophily and influence dramatically amplify even very small elective affinities between lifestyle and ideology, producing a stereotypical world of "latte liberals" and "bird-hunting conservatives" much like the one in which we live.
Abstract: Popular accounts of “lifestyle politics” and “culture wars” suggest that political and ideological divisions extend also to leisure activities, consumption, aesthetic taste, and personal morality. Drawing on a total of 22,572 pairwise correlations from the General Social Survey (1972–2010), the authors provide comprehensive empirical support for the anecdotal accounts. Moreover, most ideological differences in lifestyle cannot be explained by demographic covariates alone. The authors propose a surprisingly simple solution to the puzzle of lifestyle politics. Computational experiments show how the self-reinforcing dynamics of homophily and influence dramatically amplify even very small elective affinities between lifestyle and ideology, producing a stereotypical world of “latte liberals” and “bird-hunting conservatives” much like the one in which we live.
226 citations
05 May 2015
TL;DR: This book introduces readers to the methods, opportunities, and challenges of using Twitter data to analyze phenomena ranging from the number of people infected by the flu, to national elections, to tomorrow's stock prices.
Abstract: How can Twitter data be used to study individual-level human behavior and social interaction on a global scale? This book introduces readers to the methods, opportunities, and challenges of using Twitter data to analyze phenomena ranging from the number of people infected by the flu, to national elections, to tomorrow's stock prices. Each chapter, written by leading domain experts in clear and accessible language, takes the reader to the forefront of the newly emerging field of computational social science. An introductory chapter on Twitter data analysis provides an overview of key tools and skills, and gives pointers on how to get started, while the case studies demonstrate shortcomings, limitations, and pitfalls of Twitter data as well as its advantages. The book will be an excellent resource for social science students and researchers wanting to explore the use of online data.
83 citations
TL;DR: A bottom-up analysis confirms the persistence of the eight culturally differentiated civilizations posited by Huntington, with the divisions corresponding to differences in language, religion, economic development, and spatial distance.
Abstract: Conflicts fueled by popular religious mobilization have rekindled the controversy surrounding Samuel Huntington’s theory of changing international alignments in the Post-Cold War era. In The Clash of Civilizations, Huntington challenged Fukuyama’s “end of history” thesis that liberal democracy had emerged victorious out of Post-war ideological and economic rivalries. Based on a top-down analysis of the alignments of nation states, Huntington famously concluded that the axes of international geo-political conflicts had reverted to the ancient cultural divisions that had characterized most of human history. Until recently, however, the debate has had to rely more on polemics than empirical evidence. Moreover, Huntington made this prediction in 1993, before social media connected the world’s population. Do digital communications attenuate or echo the cultural, religious, and ethnic “fault lines” posited by Huntington prior to the global diffusion of social media? We revisit Huntington's thesis using hundreds of millions of anonymized email and Twitter communications among tens of millions of worldwide users to map the global alignment of interpersonal relations. Contrary to the supposedly borderless world of cyberspace, a bottom-up analysis confirms the persistence of the eight culturally differentiated civilizations posited by Huntington, with the divisions corresponding to differences in language, religion, economic development, and spatial distance.
44 citations
TL;DR: This work reviews recent sociological studies that are noteworthy for demonstrating the theoretical importance of noise for understanding the dynamics of a complex system and identifies conditions in which noise can increase efficiency and predictability and reduce diversity.
Abstract: Noise is widely regarded as a residual category—the unexplained variance in a linear model or the random disturbance of a predictable pattern. Accordingly, formal models often impose the simplifying assumption that the world is noise-free and social dynamics are deterministic. Where noise is assigned causal importance, it is often assumed to be a source of inefficiency, unpredictability, or heterogeneity. We review recent sociological studies that are noteworthy for demonstrating the theoretical importance of noise for understanding the dynamics of a complex system. Contrary to widely held assumptions, these studies identify conditions in which noise can increase efficiency and predictability and reduce diversity. We conclude with a methodological warning that deterministic assumptions are not an innocent simplification.
24 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors test whether retaliation can also be contagious and find that people are more likely to harm others if they have been harmed and they are less likely to do so if they observe that others do not harm.
Abstract: Previous research has shown that reciprocity can be contagious when there is no option to repay the benefactor and the recipient instead channels repayment toward strangers. In this study, we test whether retaliation can also be contagious. Extending previous work on “paying it forward,” we tested two mechanisms for the social contagion of antisocial behavior: generalized reciprocity (a victim of antisocial behavior is more likely to pay it forward) and third-party influence (an observer of antisocial behavior is more likely to emulate it). We used an online experiment with randomized trials to test the two hypothesized mechanisms and their interaction by manipulating the extent to which participants experienced and observed antisocial behavior. We found that people are more likely to harm others if they have been harmed and they are less likely to do so if they observe that others do not harm.
23 citations
TL;DR: This survey finds that active Twitter users not only tweet more often than others but they also tend to mention other users with higher frequency and the set of time stamped global positioning system (GPS) locations in their tweets are more complete.
Abstract: Twitter users vary widely in their level of activity. Active Twitter users not only tweet more often than others but they also tend to mention other users with higher frequency and the set of time stamped global positioning system (GPS) locations in their tweets are more complete. The time, location
11 citations
28 Jul 2015
TL;DR: The critical need is not a universally applicable theoretical framework but a widely shared analytical toolkit of models and methods for middle-range theorizing, including methods to collect, process, and analyze massive data, and to conduct online experiments with randomized assignment involving large numbers of participants as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: These are exciting times for sociologists. Device-mediated communications enable unprecedented empirical opportunities to obtain real-time data on individual human interactions on a global scale. To realize this potential, the critical need is not a universally applicable theoretical framework but a widely shared analytical toolkit of models and methods for middle-range theorizing, including methods to collect, process, and analyze massive data, and to conduct online experiments with randomized assignment involving large numbers of participants.
6 citations
01 Jan 2015
TL;DR: This article used an agent-based model to show how these mechanisms interact with the rivalness of contributions, that is, the extent to which the benefit from a contribution is limited to just one beneficiary or benefits many people at once.
Abstract: Every day, millions of people write online restaurant reviews, leave product ratings, provide answers to an unknown user’s question, or contribute lines of code to open-source software, all without any direct reward or recognition. People help strangers offline as well, as when people anonymously donate blood or stop to help a stranded motorist, but these behaviors are relatively rare compared to the pervasiveness of online communities based on user-generated content. Why are mutual-help communities far more common online than in traditional offline settings that are not mediated by the Internet? We address this puzzle in two steps. We begin with empirical evidence from an online experiment that tests two mechanisms for the contagion of helping behavior: “generalized reciprocity” and “third-party influence”. We then use an empirically calibrated agent-based model to show how these mechanisms interact with the rivalness of contributions, that is, the extent to which the benefit from a contribution is limited to just one beneficiary (as when helping a stranded motorist) or benefits many people at once (as when contributing a product review online). The results suggest that the non-rivalness of most user-generated content provides a plausible explanation for the rapid diffusion of helping behavior in online communities.
5 citations
01 Dec 2015
3 citations
01 Jan 2015
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors compare computational and mathematical models and reviews three phases in social simulation - dynamical systems, microsimulation, and agent-based modeling, and identify possible micro-level mechanisms that might account for puzzling empirical patterns and to identify population-level implications of a set of behavioral and structural assumptions about individual interaction.
Abstract: The article compares computational and mathematical models and reviews three phases in social simulation - dynamical systems, microsimulation, and agent-based modeling. The latter can be used to identify possible micro-level mechanisms that might account for puzzling empirical patterns and to identify population-level implications of a set of behavioral and structural assumptions about individual interaction. Classic examples include Schelling's model of residential segregation and Axelrod's model of the evolution of cooperation. The article concludes with an assessment of important criticisms.
14 Jul 2015
TL;DR: DellaPosta et al. as discussed by the authors studied how political ideology becomes linked to people's lifestyles and showed how demographic influences on opinions can be amplified by the self-reinforcing dynamics of peer group interactions.
Abstract: The increasing polarization of U.S. politics has seen the rise of partisan ‘echo chambers’ with little interaction between those at opposite poles. This division has broadened to include lifestyles, with liberals often characterized as ‘latte-drinking’ and conservatives as ‘gun enthusiasts’, for example. In new research, Daniel DellaPosta, Yongren Shi, and Michael Macy look at how political ideology becomes linked to people’s lifestyles. They show how demographic influences on opinions can be amplified by the self-reinforcing dynamics of peer group interactions.