Controlling the uncontrolled: Are there incidental experimenter effects on physiologic responding?

The degree to which experimenters shape participant behavior has long been of interest in experimental social science research. Here, we extend this question to the domain of peripheral psychophysiology, where experimenters often have direct, physical contact with participants, yet researchers do not consistently test for their influence. We describe analytic tools for examining experimenter effects in peripheral physiology. Using these tools, we investigate nine data sets totaling 1,341 participants and 160 experimenters across different roles (e.g., lead research assistants, evaluators, confederates) to demonstrate how researchers can test for experimenter effects in participant autonomic nervous system activity during baseline recordings and reactivity to study tasks. Our results showed (a) little to no significant variance in participants' physiological reactivity due to their experimenters, and (b) little to no evidence that three characteristics of experimenters that are well known to shape interpersonal interactions-status (using five studies with 682 total participants), gender (using two studies with 359 total participants), and race (in two studies with 554 total participants)-influenced participants' physiology. We highlight several reasons that experimenter effects in physiological data are still cause for concern, including the fact that experimenters in these studies were already restricted on a number of characteristics (e.g., age, education). We present recommendations for examining and reducing experimenter effects in physiological data and discuss implications for replication

Enhancing young students' high-level talk by using cooperative learning within Success for All lessons

This study examined whether students achieved high-level talk during group work because of involvement in cooperative learning within the Success for All (SfA) program. SfA is a comprehensive school program in which cooperative learning plays a key role, in addition to several other components such as parental involvement and tutoring. A quasi-experimental design with a treatment and a control group was used. At the end of the school year, grade-1 students (6- and 7-years-old children) executed a group task in small groups of four students. At that moment, SfA students had experienced cooperative learning within SfA lessons for a whole school year. In total, 160 students participated in this study. Using a coding scheme the quality of student's talk during group work was compared between treatment and control group. Compared to the control group, SfA students showed more high-level talk. SfA students expressed more extended elaborations of propositions and asked more open elaboration questions. Hence, the results of this study suggest that cooperative learning activities within SfA-lessons contributed to students' high-level talk.</p

The statistical mechanics of networks

We study the family of network models derived by requiring the expected properties of a graph ensemble to match a given set of measurements of a real-world network, while maximizing the entropy of the ensemble. Models of this type play the same role in the study of networks as is played by the Boltzmann distribution in classical statistical mechanics; they offer the best prediction of network properties subject to the constraints imposed by a given set of observations. We give exact solutions of models within this class that incorporate arbitrary degree distributions and arbitrary but independent edge probabilities. We also discuss some more complex examples with correlated edges that can be solved approximately or exactly by adapting various familiar methods, including mean-field theory, perturbation theory, and saddle-point expansions.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure

Link Prediction with Social Vector Clocks

State-of-the-art link prediction utilizes combinations of complex features derived from network panel data. We here show that computationally less expensive features can achieve the same performance in the common scenario in which the data is available as a sequence of interactions. Our features are based on social vector clocks, an adaptation of the vector-clock concept introduced in distributed computing to social interaction networks. In fact, our experiments suggest that by taking into account the order and spacing of interactions, social vector clocks exploit different aspects of link formation so that their combination with previous approaches yields the most accurate predictor to date.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure

The dynamic emergence of cooperative norms in a social dilemma

This paper addresses the formation of social norms of cooperation through interaction in repeated Public Goods Games, using novel multilevel techniques. Cooperation has traditionally been understood as the interplay of static factors such as shared social identity and pre-existing norms. This study investigates the dynamic emergence of cooperative norms in the presence or absence of social categorization. A small effect of categorization was found: Categorization helps initiate and maintain higher levels of cooperation. However, the differences in emergent cooperation between small groups were much stronger than the differences between the Categorization and Non-Categorization conditions. Using explorative analyses, three distinct classes of groups were found. Within groups, group members follow nearly identical rules for their choice of cooperative behavior. We argue that individual behavior converged because of the social interactions within these groups. Overall, the development of cooperation is best predicted by the process of norm formation that occurs when social identities emerge.</p

Promoting students' social behavior in primary education through Success for All lessons

Success for All (SfA) is a comprehensive school reform program with a strong emphasis on cooperative learning that aims to improve students' social emotional learning alongside students' cognitive learning. In the present study it was examined whether SfA led to improved students' social behavior in Grade 1-3 of primary education. Peer sociometric data was collected for 974 students aged 6-9. Using multivariate multilevel analysis we found no significant effect of SfA on students' proand antisocial behavior over time. However, a significant interaction effect was found showing that antisocial behavior of students from disadvantaged backgrounds decreased in the intervention condition in Grade 2. This is a promising finding given that the SfA program was especially developed for schools serving large numbers of disadvantaged students. Implications of the study are described

Interviewer effects on non-response propensity in longitudinal surveys:a multilevel modelling approach

The paper investigates two different multilevel approaches, the multilevel cross-classified and the multiple-membership models, for the analysis of interviewer effects on wave non-response in longitudinal surveys. The models proposed incorporate both interviewer and area effects to account for the non-hierarchical structure, the influence of potentially more than one interviewer across waves and possible confounding of area and interviewer effects arising from the non-random allocation of interviewers across areas. The methods are compared by using a data set: the UK Family and Children Survey