5 research outputs found
Individualization as driving force of clustering phenomena in humans
One of the most intriguing dynamics in biological systems is the emergence of
clustering, the self-organization into separated agglomerations of individuals.
Several theories have been developed to explain clustering in, for instance,
multi-cellular organisms, ant colonies, bee hives, flocks of birds, schools of
fish, and animal herds. A persistent puzzle, however, is clustering of opinions
in human populations. The puzzle is particularly pressing if opinions vary
continuously, such as the degree to which citizens are in favor of or against a
vaccination program. Existing opinion formation models suggest that
"monoculture" is unavoidable in the long run, unless subsets of the population
are perfectly separated from each other. Yet, social diversity is a robust
empirical phenomenon, although perfect separation is hardly possible in an
increasingly connected world. Considering randomness did not overcome the
theoretical shortcomings so far. Small perturbations of individual opinions
trigger social influence cascades that inevitably lead to monoculture, while
larger noise disrupts opinion clusters and results in rampant individualism
without any social structure. Our solution of the puzzle builds on recent
empirical research, combining the integrative tendencies of social influence
with the disintegrative effects of individualization. A key element of the new
computational model is an adaptive kind of noise. We conduct simulation
experiments to demonstrate that with this kind of noise, a third phase besides
individualism and monoculture becomes possible, characterized by the formation
of metastable clusters with diversity between and consensus within clusters.
When clusters are small, individualization tendencies are too weak to prohibit
a fusion of clusters. When clusters grow too large, however, individualization
increases in strength, which promotes their splitting.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure
Family planning needs of young adults with sickle cell disease
Abstract Sexual and reproductive healthcare standards for adolescents and young adults with sickle cell disease (SCD) are not established. A total of 50 young adults entering adult SCD care completed a Family Planning Survey assessing sexual and reproductive health needs from March 2019 to July 2020. Clinical data were abstracted from respondentsâ electronic medical records. Linear and logistic regression was applied to explore associations between clinical characteristics and survey results. Few respondents (8%) wished to be pregnant in the coming year, and 46% answered yes to at least one of four needs assessment questions. Those who were not employed full time were more likely to endorse needing help with getting sickle cell trait testing for a partner (ORadj = 9.59, pâvalue = 0.05). Contraceptive use was associated with having an obstetricianâgynecologist (OR = 6.8, pâvalue = 0.01). Young adults with SCD entering adult care have diverse reproductive health needs, highlighting opportunities to provide multidisciplinary, SCDâspecific reproductive healthcare
How to get the timing right. A computational model of the effects of the timing of contacts on team cohesion in demographically diverse teams
Lau and Murnighanâs faultline theory explains negative effects of demographic
diversity on team performance as consequence of strong demographic faultlines.
If demographic differences between group members are correlated across various
dimensions, the team is likely to show a âsubgroup splitâ that inhibits communication
and effective collaboration between team members. Our paper proposes a rigorous
formal and computational reconstruction of the theory. Our model integrates
four elementary mechanisms of social interaction, homophily, heterophobia, social
influence and rejection into a computational representation of the dynamics of both
opinions and social relations in the team. Computational experiments demonstrate
that the central claims of faultline theory are consistent with the model.We show furthermore
that the model highlights a new structural condition that may give managers
a handle to temper the negative effects of strong demographic faultlines. We call this
condition the timing of contacts. Computational analyses reveal that negative effects
of strong faultlines critically depend on who is when brought in contact with whom
in the process of social interactions in the team. More specifically, we demonstrate
that faultlines have hardly negative effects when teams are initially split into demographically
homogeneous subteams that are merged only when a local consensus has
developed.