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SUMMARY:Group Processes and Local Network Dynamics - James Kitts (Columbia
  University\, School of Business)
DTSTART:20110510T150000Z
DTEND:20110510T160000Z
UID:TALK30317@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Eiko Yoneki
DESCRIPTION:Dr. Kitts will begin by drawing on some of his research on uto
 pian communes\,\nillustrating some phenomena that have interested group pr
 ocess scholars for decades.\nHe will then show how such patterns can emerg
 e at the group level as unintended\nbyproducts of the most elementary proc
 esses of social interaction in networks. The rest\nof the talk will focus 
 on an empirical study of these micro-level processes. In 2004-2007\,\nDr. 
 Kitts collaborated with a team of computer scientists working to develop m
 ethods for\nusing wearable sensors to record social interactions\, and to 
 then derive social network\ndata automatically from audio recordings. The 
 researchers implemented these methods\nin a study of two student cohorts a
 s they joined a graduate program at a large US\nuniversity. In analyzing f
 ive forms of social interaction among these students\, Dr. Kitts\nwill com
 pare how these five relations change over the academic year to shed new li
 ght\non the mechanisms underlying the evolution of networks within social 
 groups.\n\nBIO:\nJames Kitts is an Assistant Professor in Management at Co
 lumbia University\, having\npreviously held positions in Sociology at Dart
 mouth College and the University of\nWashington. He is broadly interested 
 in the dynamics of cooperation and competition\namong organizations and am
 ong their members. He has studied the collective\nimplications of communic
 ation biases in interaction networks\, the dynamics of\npolarization\, fac
 tionalism\, and extremism in social influence networks\, and the\ndemograp
 hy and ecology of radical social movement organizations. His work has\nrec
 ently appeared in American Sociological Review\, Social Forces\, Demograph
 y\, and\nSocial Psychology Quarterly.
LOCATION:FW26\, Computer Laboratory\, William Gates Builiding
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