Using sociometers to quantify social interaction patterns
Name
Onnela-2014-Using sociometers.pdf
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560.25 KB
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Author(s)
Onnela, Jukka-Pekka
Schnorf, Sebastian
Lazer, David
Waber, Benjamin Nathan
Pentland, Alex Paul
Date Issued
July 2014
Journal
Scientific Reports
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Citation
Onnela, Jukka-Pekka, Benjamin N. Waber, Alex Pentland, Sebastian Schnorf, and David Lazer. “Using Sociometers to Quantify Social Interaction Patterns.” Sci. Rep. 4 (July 15, 2014).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Research on human social interactions has traditionally relied on self-reports. Despite their widespread use, self-reported accounts of behaviour are prone to biases and necessarily reduce the range of behaviours, and the number of subjects, that may be studied simultaneously. The development of ever smaller sensors makes it possible to study group-level human behaviour in naturalistic settings outside research laboratories. We used such sensors, sociometers, to examine gender, talkativeness and interaction style in two different contexts. Here, we find that in the collaborative context, women were much more likely to be physically proximate to other women and were also significantly more talkative than men, especially in small groups. In contrast, there were no gender-based differences in the non-collaborative setting. Our results highlight the importance of objective measurement in the study of human behaviour, here enabling us to discern context specific, gender-based differences in interaction style.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Laboratory
Program in Media Arts and Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
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Creative Commons Attribution
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/srep05604
