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We study group decision making with changing preferences as a Markov Decision Process. We are motivated by the increasing prevalence of automated decision-making systems when making choices for groups of people over time. Our main…
We look at a collection of conjectures with the unifying message that smaller social systems, tend to be less complex and can be aligned better, towards fulfilling their intended objectives. We touch upon a framework, referred to as the…
This short article introduces the concept of political vulnerability for social media researchers. How are traditional notions of harm challenged by research subjects in politically vulnerable communities? Through a selection of case…
We study some problems of collective choice when individuals can have expressive preferences, that is, where a decision-maker may care not only about the material benefit from choosing an action but also about some intrinsic morality of the…
In mainstream neoclassical economics, utility maximization is the only engine of individual action, and the other or the social, if it is modeled for decisions deemed fundamental, it is done as a tacit externality parameter affecting an…
In democracies, major policy decisions typically require some form of majority or consensus, so elites must secure mass support to govern. Historically, elites could shape support only through limited instruments like schooling and mass…
Social media platforms are online fora where users engage in discussions, share content, and build connections. This review explores the dynamics of social interactions, user-generated contents, and biases within the context of social media…
We study the effect of time-fluctuating social influences on the formation of polarization and consensus in a three-party community consisting of two types of voters ("leftists" and "rightists") holding extreme opinions, and moderate agents…
This paper develops strategic foundations for an important statistical model of random networks with heterogeneous expected degrees. Based on this, we show how social networking services that subtly alter the costs and indirect benefits of…
Peer reviews, evaluations, and selections are a fundamental aspect of modern science. Funding bodies the world over employ experts to review and select the best proposals from those submitted for funding. The problem of peer selection,…
The social implications of algorithmic decision-making in sensitive contexts have generated lively debates among multiple stakeholders, such as moral and political philosophers, computer scientists, and the public. Yet, the lack of a common…
Individual choices are either based on personal experience or on information provided by peers. The latter case, causes individuals to conform to the majority in their neighborhood. Such herding behavior may be very efficient in aggregating…
The flourishing of fake news is favored by recommendation algorithms of online social networks which, based on previous users activity, provide content adapted to their preferences and so create filter bubbles. We introduce an analytically…
Democracies employ elections at various scales to select officials at the corresponding levels of administration. The geographical distribution of political opinion, the policy issues delegated to each level, and the multilevel interactions…
Mutualistic relationships among the different species are ubiquitous in nature. To prevent mutualism from slipping into antagonism, a host often invokes a "carrot and stick" approach towards symbionts with a stabilizing effect on their…
We consider a dynamic collective choice problem where a large number of players are cooperatively choosing between multiple destinations while being influenced by the behavior of the group. For example, in a robotic swarm exploring a new…
People are influenced by the choices of others, a phenomenon observed across contexts in the social and behavioral sciences. Social influence can lock in an initial popularity advantage of an option over a higher quality alternative. Yet…
We study a model of consensus decision making, in which a finite group of Bayesian agents has to choose between one of two courses of action. Each member of the group has a private and independent signal at his or her disposal, giving some…
Communities are ubiquitous in nature and society. Individuals that share common properties often self-organize to form communities. Avoiding the shortages of computation complexity, pre-given information and unstable results in different…
Opinion dynamics have fascinated researchers for centuries. The ability of societies to learn as well as the emergence of irrational {\it herding} are equally evident. The simplest example is that of agents that have to determine a binary…