arXiv subjects

Paul E. Smaldino

Publications and source records attributed to Paul E. Smaldino.

11 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Assessing How Hate, Counterspeech, and Toxicity Affect Hate Group Newcomers

Counterspeech has gained attention as a strategy to reduce hate speech on social media. Although previous studies suggest that counterspeech can reduce hate speech, little is known about its effects on participation in online hate communities. Relatedly, we lack an understanding about the degree of hostility in counterspeech. Hostile counterspeech may increase online conflict, potentially hardening the positions of hate adherents, and further eroding online environments. Here, we analyzed the effect of counterspeech on 16,513 newcomers across 104 hate subreddits (forums within Reddit.com). We devised an LLM-based counterspeech detection approach that outperforms specialized models trained on existing datasets, then examined the presence, and effects of, hostility. While counterspeech comments are less toxic than hate speech comments, they are almost twice as toxic as other discourse within hate subreddits. We then evaluated the effect of counterspeech on newcomer engagement in hate subreddits. We found that newcomers using hate speech who receive counterspeech are less likely to continue posting within these hate subreddits, rather than becoming galvanized. We speculate that, instead of constituting ardent hate adherents, readily-dissuaded newcomers may merely be toying with beliefs that are proscribed in other contexts. Although we found no association between the toxicity of counterspeech and its effects on user retention, consistent with prior research regarding the harmful effects of toxic speech, we found that toxic counterspeech increases the probability of continued hostility from hate users within the same discussion.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2025

Recommender systems, stigmergy, and the tyranny of popularity

Scientific recommender systems, such as Google Scholar and Web of Science, are essential tools for discovery. Search algorithms that power work through stigmergy, a collective intelligence mechanism that surfaces useful paths through repeated engagement. While generally effective, this "rich-get-richer" dynamic results in a small number of high-profile papers that dominate visibility. This essay argues argue that these algorithm over-reliance on popularity fosters intellectual homogeneity and exacerbates structural inequities, stifling innovative and diverse perspectives critical for scientific progress. We propose an overhaul of search platforms to incorporate user-specific calibration, allowing researchers to manually adjust the weights of factors like popularity, recency, and relevance. We also advise platform developers on how text embeddings and LLMs could be implemented in ways that increase user autonomy. While our suggestions are particularly pertinent to aligning recommender systems with scientific values, these ideas are broadly applicable to information access systems in general. Designing platforms that increase user autonomy is an important step toward more robust and dynamic information

cs.CY↗

arXiv2018

Paths to Polarization: How Extreme Views, Miscommunication, and Random Chance Drive Opinion Dynamics

Understanding the social conditions that tend to increase or decrease polarization is important for many reasons. We study a network-structured agent-based model of opinion dynamics, extending a model previously introduced by Flache and Macy (2011), who found that polarization appeared to increased with the introduction of long-range ties but decrease with the number of salient opinions, which they called the population's "cultural complexity." We find the following. First, polarization is strongly path dependent and sensitive to stochastic variation. Second, polarization depends strongly on the initial distribution of opinions in the population. In the absence of extremists, polarization may be mitigated. Third, noisy communication can drive a population toward more extreme opinions and even cause acute polarization. Finally, the apparent reduction in polarization under increased "cultural complexity" arises via a particular property of the polarization measurement, under which a population containing a wider diversity of extreme views is deemed less polarized. This work has implications for understanding the population dynamics of beliefs, opinions, and polarization, as well as broader implications for the analysis of agent-based models of social phenomena.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2018

Cultural Evolution of Categorization

Categorization is a fundamental function of minds, with wide ranging implications for the rest of the cognitive system. In humans, categories are shared and communicated between minds, thus requiring explanations at the population level. In this paper, we discuss the current state of research on the cultural evolution of categorization. We begin by delineating key properties of categories in need of evolutionary explanation. We then review computational modeling and laboratory studies of category evolution, including their major insights and limitations. Finally, we discuss remaining challenges for understanding the cultural evolution of categorization.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2017

Resilience by Structural Entrenchment: Dynamics of Single-Layer and Multiplex Networks Following Sudden Changes to Tie Costs

We examine a model of network formation in single-layer and multiplex networks in which individuals have positive incentives for social ties, closed triangles, and spillover edges. In particular, we investigate the influence of shocks to the network in which the cost of social ties changes after an initial equilibrium. We highlight the emergence of structural entrenchment: the retention of structural features, such as closed triangles and spillover edges, which are formed under historically different conditions from those currently driving network evolution. This work has broad implications for understanding path dependence in the structure and dynamics of single-layer and multiplex networks.

cs.SI↗

arXiv2016

Adoption as a Social Marker: Innovation Diffusion with Outgroup Aversion

Social identities are among the key factors driving behavior in complex societies. Signals of social identity are known to influence individual behaviors in the adoption of innovations. Yet the population-level consequences of identity signaling on the diffusion of innovations are largely unknown. Here we use both analytical and agent-based modeling to consider the spread of a beneficial innovation in a structured population in which there exist two groups who are averse to being mistaken for each other. We investigate the dynamics of adoption and consider the role of structural factors such as demographic skew and communication scale on population-level outcomes. We find that outgroup aversion can lead to adoption being delayed or suppressed in one group, and that population-wide underadoption is common. Comparing the two models, we find that differential adoption can arise due to structural constraints on information flow even in the absence of intrinsic between-group differences in adoption rates. Further, we find that patterns of polarization in adoption at both local and global scales depend on the details of demographic organization and the scale of communication. This research has particular relevance to widely beneficial but identity-relevant products and behaviors, such as green technologies, where overall levels of adoption determine the positive benefits that accrue to society at large.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2016

The Natural Selection of Bad Science

Poor research design and data analysis encourage false-positive findings. Such poor methods persist despite perennial calls for improvement, suggesting that they result from something more than just misunderstanding. The persistence of poor methods results partly from incentives that favor them, leading to the natural selection of bad science. This dynamic requires no conscious strategizing---no deliberate cheating nor loafing---by scientists, only that publication is a principle factor for career advancement. Some normative methods of analysis have almost certainly been selected to further publication instead of discovery. In order to improve the culture of science, a shift must be made away from correcting misunderstandings and towards rewarding understanding. We support this argument with empirical evidence and computational modeling. We first present a 60-year meta-analysis of statistical power in the behavioral sciences and show that power has not improved despite repeated demonstrations of the necessity of increasing power. To demonstrate the logical consequences of structural incentives, we then present a dynamic model of scientific communities in which competing laboratories investigate novel or previously published hypotheses using culturally transmitted research methods. As in the real world, successful labs produce more "progeny", such that their methods are more often copied and their students are more likely to start labs of their own. Selection for high output leads to poorer methods and increasingly high false discovery rates. We additionally show that replication slows but does not stop the process of methodological deterioration. Improving the quality of research requires change at the institutional level.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2015

Evolution of Cooperation Via Covert Signaling

Human sociality depends upon the benefits of mutual aid and extensive communication. However mutual aid is made difficult by the problems of coordinating diverse norms and preferences, and communication is harried by substantial ambiguity in meaning. Here we demonstrate that these two facts can work together to allow cooperation to develop, by the strategic use of deliberately ambiguous signals, covert signaling. Covert signaling is the transmission of information that is accurately received by its intended audience but obscured when perceived by others. Such signals may allow coordination and enhanced cooperation while also avoiding the alienation or hostile reactions of individuals with different preferences. Although the empirical literature has identified potential mechanisms of covert signaling, such as encryption in humor, there is to date no formal theory of its dynamics. We introduce a novel mathematical model to assess the conditions under which a covert signaling strategy will be favored. We show that covert signaling plausibly serves an important function in facilitating within-group cooperative assortment by allowing individuals to pair up with similar individuals when possible and to get along with dissimilar individuals when necessary. This mechanism has broad implications for theories of signaling and cooperation, humor, social identity, and the evolution of human cultural complexity.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2015

Replication, Communication, and the Population Dynamics of Scientific Discovery

Many published research results are false, and controversy continues over the roles of replication and publication policy in improving the reliability of research. Addressing these problems is frustrated by the lack of a formal framework that jointly represents hypothesis formation, replication, publication bias, and variation in research quality. We develop a mathematical model of scientific discovery that combines all of these elements. This model provides both a dynamic model of research as well as a formal framework for reasoning about the normative structure of science. We show that replication may serve as a ratchet that gradually separates true hypotheses from false, but the same factors that make initial findings unreliable also make replications unreliable. The most important factors in improving the reliability of research are the rate of false positives and the base rate of true hypotheses, and we offer suggestions for addressing each. Our results also bring clarity to verbal debates about the communication of research. Surprisingly, publication bias is not always an obstacle, but instead may have positive impacts---suppression of negative novel findings is often beneficial. We also find that communication of negative replications may aid true discovery even when attempts to replicate have diminished power. The model speaks constructively to ongoing debates about the design and conduct of science, focusing analysis and discussion on precise, internally consistent models, as well as highlighting the importance of population dynamics.

stat.OT↗

arXiv2015

Does Learning Imply a Decrease in the Entropy of Behavior?

Shannon's information entropy measures of the uncertainty of an event's outcome. If learning about a system reflects a decrease in uncertainty, then a plausible intuition is that learning should be accompanied by a decrease in the entropy of the organism's actions and/or perceptual states. To address whether this intuition is valid, I examined an artificial organism -- a simple robot -- that learned to navigate in an arena and analyzed the entropy of the outcome variables action, state, and reward. Entropy did indeed decrease in the initial stages of learning, but two factors complicated the scenario: (1) the introduction of new options discovered during the learning process and (2) the shifting patterns of perceptual and environmental states resulting from changes to the robot's learned movement strategies. These factors lead to a subsequent increase in entropy as the agent learned. I end with a discussion of the utility of information-based characterizations of learning.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2015

Social Conformity Despite Individual Preferences for Distinctiveness

We demonstrate that individual behaviors directed at the attainment of distinctiveness can in fact produce complete social conformity. We thus offer an unexpected generative mechanism for this central social phenomenon. Specifically, we establish that agents who have fixed needs to be distinct and adapt their positions to achieve distinctiveness goals, can nevertheless self-organize to a limiting state of absolute conformity. This seemingly paradoxical result is deduced formally from a small number of natural assumptions, and is then explored at length computationally. Interesting departures from this conformity equilibrium are also possible, including divergence in positions. The effect of extremist minorities on these dynamics is discussed. A simple extension is then introduced, which allows the model to generate and maintain social diversity, including multimodal distinctiveness distributions. The paper contributes formal definitions, analytical deductions, and counterintuitive findings to the literature on individual distinctiveness and social conformity.

physics.soc-ph↗