Papers by Susannah Paletz
SpringerBriefs in complexity, 2019
The literature identifies multiple motivations underlying individuals' drive to share information... more The literature identifies multiple motivations underlying individuals' drive to share information on social media. We categorized these motivations using the psychological concept of needs that all humans have (i.e., need for impression management and enhancement, need for self-consistency and social identity, need for accuracy, and need for affiliation). Groups and individuals within a society may also have sociopolitical and economic motivations. Non-genuine actors are driven by their creators' human motivations to share information. There may be individual differences in these motives, such that for some people, some of these motives are stronger than others. Individuals may also have different thresholds for sharing behavior, such that some share online more easily than others, based on how well they feel that information sharing on social media provides an outlet for these needs and how appropriate they feel their behavior is. These motivations are not mutually exclusive.
SpringerBriefs in complexity, 2019
Genuine actors will react to the message they read and the messenger they encounter. We categoriz... more Genuine actors will react to the message they read and the messenger they encounter. We categorized these reactions into those related to affect and engagement (e.g., high arousal-specific emotions such as surprise or disgust) and those related to cognitive factors that influence belief, including factors that prompt individuals to engage in heuristic thinking. These affective and cognitive factors often interact in complex ways. We also categorized entertainment, humor, and intellectual engagement as inherently both related to affect and cognition. Believing in the content of the message is not necessary for individuals to share it online.
SpringerBriefs in complexity, 2019
Messages originate from a variety of sources. Social media users may create content, observe a me... more Messages originate from a variety of sources. Social media users may create content, observe a message or narrative, or seek one out. What people view is influenced by what they search for and what is being shared already in their social networks.
SpringerBriefs in complexity, 2019
This chapter tackled three major aspects of the social context: culture, narratives, and language... more This chapter tackled three major aspects of the social context: culture, narratives, and language; social comparison of beliefs and norms; and the structure and composition of one’s social network. These factors may have an impact not only on sharing behavior directly, but also on motivations and reactions to narratives and information. Culture, whether conceptualized as cross-national dimensions or culture-specific narratives, may impact how a particular piece of information is viewed, for instance. Comparisons between one’s own beliefs and that perceived to be held by one’s social group may influence how socially acceptable it is to state a particular belief. Echo chambers of people with the same belief may become more extreme. Indeed, these contextual factors also interact with each other, such that culture can be associated with structural differences in social networks. Although the reviewed studies have complex results with regards to social network ties, connections matter and are imperative to the spreading of information. This research also suggests that community structures, the composition of the community (homogeneous or diverse), perceptions of the specific audience, and network size are important factors in the spread, propagation and virality of information online.
SpringerBriefs in complexity, 2019
The act of sharing information online depends on the actor's ability to share-that is, having acc... more The act of sharing information online depends on the actor's ability to share-that is, having access to social media platforms, being willing to use social media, and being familiar with relevant technology. Several social media affordances also play a role in whether people share online content. These affordances are both sociotechnical (i.e., the way people interact with technology) and practical (i.e., capabilities of specific platforms that allow users to create content, build networks, and share information).
SpringerBriefs in complexity, 2019
Non-genuine actors, including social bots and sockpuppets, are automated or manipulated to post i... more Non-genuine actors, including social bots and sockpuppets, are automated or manipulated to post information and sentiment to various social media platforms. Though not all social bots and sockpuppets are nefarious, there is evidence that some of these non-genuine accounts—especially on Facebook and Twitter—are maliciously managed by hackers or state actors, to spread misinformation and spam. Trolls may or may not be automated, but are consciously or unconsciously divisive.
SpringerBriefs in complexity, 2019
2009 Atlanta Conference on Science and Innovation Policy, ACSIP 2009, 2009
Equality of participation is an important factor in the success of multidisciplinary science team... more Equality of participation is an important factor in the success of multidisciplinary science teams. The typical measure, standard deviation, fails to provide unbiased estimates across groups of different sizes or within groups that change size over time. ! We propose a new metric of participation equality that takes into account real-world teams that have members come and go naturally over the course of a meeting. This new metric ranges from zero (entirely equal participation) to one (entirely dominated by a single person). This metric is at the group level and for whatever period of time the researcher specifies. Using 11 hours of transcribed utterances from informal, fluid, co-located meetings during the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission, we computed this metric for 549 blocks of time. We found that this metric had good convergent validity via having strong positive correlations with both a standard deviation metric of words spoken and participation equality as assessed by two independent coders. It also had good discriminant validity by being uncorrelated with positive and negative affect words, including anxiety and sadness words. Furthermore, when only fluid groups were examined, it maintained a strong correlation with coder-assessed participation. Future research can take advantage of this metric in other settings where team membership is fluid and equality of participation is of interest.
One potential problem for creativity theory is whether both novelty and appropriateness are equal... more One potential problem for creativity theory is whether both novelty and appropriateness are equally valid dimensions across cultures. Taking an implicit theory approach, the authors surveyed more than 400 students from Japan, China, and the United States. Using repeated measures scenarios of cooking and textbook products, novelty was found to be important across the three countries for evaluations of creativity. However, the Chinese were more swayed than were the Americans by the novelty manipulation in terms of how much they desired the products. Appropriateness was more important for Americans and Japanese for evaluations of creativity and desire for products. Both novelty and appropriateness had large effects. Rather than relying on assumed country variations, the authors argue that cross-cultural research be used to understand the nature of creativity.
Routledge eBooks, Jul 24, 2023
This chapter develops theory on the effect of collective paradoxical frames on team learning and ... more This chapter develops theory on the effect of collective paradoxical frames on team learning and innovation. The chapter identifies contradictory yet interdependent processes of knowledge acquisition and creation, knowledge sharing and transfer, and knowledge integration and implementation. It extends theory on collective paradoxical frames, or shared cognitive filters that enable team members to recognize and accept tensions between opposing elements (e.g., demands, goals, and interests). It advances theoretical clarity by distinguishing between paradoxical, naïve dialectical, and either/or frames, integrating Western and Eastern perspectives to paradox. It also develops theory on how different frames affect the ability of teams to learn and innovate; on mediating cognitive and social processes; and on moderating conditions of context, task, and team characteristics. Finally, it identifies promising directions for future research.
Frontiers in Psychology, Mar 3, 2023
Social media users are often exposed to cute content that evokes emotional reactions and influenc... more Social media users are often exposed to cute content that evokes emotional reactions and influences them to feel or behave certain ways. The cuteness phenomenon in social media has been scarcely studied despite its prevalence and potential to spread quickly and affect large audiences. The main framework for understanding cuteness and emotions related to cuteness outside of social media is baby schema (having juvenile characteristics), which triggers parental instincts. We propose that baby schema is a necessary but not sufficient component of explaining what constitutes cuteness and how people react to it in the social media context. Cute social media content may also have characteristics that evoke approach motivations (a desire to interact with an entity, generally with the expectation of having a positive experience) that can manifest behaviorally in sharing and other prosocial online behaviors. We developed and performed initial validation for measures in social media contexts of: (1) cute attributes that encompass both baby schema and other proposed cuteness characteristics (the Cuteness Attributes Taxonomy, CAT) and (2) the emotional reactions they trigger (Heartwarming Social Media, HSM). We used the Kama Muta Multiplex Scale (KAMMUS Two), as previously validated measure of kama muta (an emotion akin to tenderness; from Sanskrit, "moved by love") as a measure of emotional reaction to cute stimuli and the dimension Cute Content of the Social Media Emotions Annotation Guide (SMEmo-Cute Content) as a developed measure of gestalt cute content to help validate our newly developed measures. Using 1,875 Polish tweets, our results confirmed that cute social media content predicted a kama muta response, but not all KAMMUS Two subscales were sensitive to cute content, and that the HSM measure was a better indicator of the presence of cute content. Further, the CAT measure is an effective means of categorizing cute attributes of social media content. These results suggest potential differences between in-person, online, and social media experiences evoking cute emotional reactions, and the need for metrics that are developed and validated for use in social media contexts.
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jul 2, 2012
Research in the psychology of science has typically fallen into separate, isolated subfields with... more Research in the psychology of science has typically fallen into separate, isolated subfields within psychology. This chapter examines two models that tie together social and cognitive psychological variables important in the development of innovation in multidisciplinary science teams, separately considering convergent versus divergent creative processes. The models are theoretically examined from the perspective of explicit and implicit elements. The chapter then draws on a recent study examining the moment-by-moment interplay of conflict (a social variable) and analogy (a cognitive variable) in a real-world multidisciplinary science team to examine the empirical nature of connections between social and cognitive models. While both conflict and analogies can be implicit and explicit simultaneously, the significant connections between these two variables seem to be mainly implicit, drawing on underlying knowledge structures and differences.
Oxford University Press eBooks, May 24, 2018
This chapter synthesizes literature on multidisciplinary and multicultural creative teams. We exa... more This chapter synthesizes literature on multidisciplinary and multicultural creative teams. We examine the main similarities and differences between cultural and disciplinary diversity; summarize the primary, relevant theories; describe the extant literature on the relationship between team diversity and creativity, information sharing, conflict, and other factors; and point out gaps in the literature and potential future work. Diversity can benefit creativity if the underlying breadth of perspectives is harnessed, but the relationship between diversity and creativity is a complex and heavily moderated one. This chapter integrates recent advances, such as multilevel theory, the importance of shared mental models, and different aspects of creativity. In addition, this chapter highlights the importance of faultlines, or when multiple types of diversity align within the same team. Future research should take a broader systems perspective, examining factors such as type and degree of diversity, context of the team, and time/group development, among other variables.
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Jul 19, 2018
These activities open up new fronts in the United States' information environment, both domestica... more These activities open up new fronts in the United States' information environment, both domestically and abroad. Before tackling the roots or spread of misinformation (incomplete, vague, ambiguous information) or disinformation (intentionally untrue information; Cooke, 2017), it is important to understand why people share any information on social media at all. This report presents a broad, multidisciplinary review of the factors that have been shown to, or might, influence sharing information on social media, regardless of its veracity. This report begins with an introduction to the problem, then covers the background and an overview of a high-level model of information sharing. The model flows through the different ways information is acquired or viewed from a source, to reactions by the target sharer and motivations to share, to the ability (and perceptions of the ability) to share before leading to sharing behavior. Finally, this model distinguishes between genuine and nongenuine (inauthentic) actors: Non-genuine actors are individuals who are pretending to be someone they are not, and can include bots, which are automated and driven by algorithms designed to interact or share information. 1 Fake news historically has included yellow journalism and other information in news media that is deliberately inaccurate or misleading. For most of this paper, we use the term 'fake news' to refer to "news articles that are intentionally and verifiably false, and could mislead readers" (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017, p. 213). Note that intent is hard to prove, and propaganda can include a mix of falsehood and truth. Although we will refer to 'fake news,' particularly in reference to the corpus we analyze, we will often also refer to the more technical terms of misinformation and disinformation (Cooke, 2017). Fake news may include one or both types. While disinformation is intentionally untrue, misinformation may have elements of truth in it (Cooke, 2017).
Small Group Research, Jun 7, 2023
This study introduces the concept of acoustic-prosodic entrainment (ways people speak similarly).... more This study introduces the concept of acoustic-prosodic entrainment (ways people speak similarly). We review prior research on entrainment theory and methods from computational linguistics, and then apply this concept to team research by examining the relationship between team personality composition and subsequent entrainment in an exploratory case study. With 62 teams playing a cooperative board game, team average Agreeableness and team Agreeableness diversity positively, and Openness to Experience diversity negatively, preceded different kinds of entrainment. This study suggests entrainment is not a singular construct. Small group researchers could leverage technological, methodological, and conceptual advances in computational linguistics to study emergent team processes.
Behavior Research Methods
SpringerBriefs in Complexity, 2019
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this p... more The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
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Papers by Susannah Paletz