[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":372},["ShallowReactive",2],{"projects":3},[4,55,84,128,170,204,244,292,336],{"id":5,"title":6,"body":7,"description":32,"extension":33,"goals":34,"image":43,"meta":47,"navigation":48,"path":49,"priority":50,"seo":51,"stem":52,"summary":53,"__hash__":54},"projects\u002Fproject\u002Fchanging-population-behavior-by-targeting-structurally-influential-individuals.md","Changing Population Behavior by Targeting Structurally Influential Individuals",{"type":8,"value":9,"toc":28},"minimark",[10,22,25],[11,12,13,14,21],"p",{},"Communities of people – whether in developing world villages, in schools, or in workplaces – often have suboptimal norms, particularly in relation to health practices. But, using large-scale experiments, we have shown that it is possible to use network targeting algorithms to produce cascades of adoption of new health behaviors within rural villages in Honduras. By targeting just 5% of the residents of each village, who are chosen based on their position in the networks of connections within these villages, we substantially enhanced adoption of a desirable practice (e.g., the use of vitamins). (",[15,16,20],"a",{"href":17,"rel":18},"http:\u002F\u002Fhumannaturelab.net\u002Fpublications\u002Fsocial-network-targeting-to-maximise-population-behaviour-change-a-cluster-randomised-controlled-trial",[19],"nofollow","See our 2015 Lancet article.",")",[11,23,24],{},"Since that first field trial, we have mounted an enormous randomized controlled trial of network targeting among 30,000 people in 176 villages in Copan, Honduras. We have also completed another randomized controlled trial involving 5,000 people in 60 buildings in Mumbai, India. In both cases, we have shown, using these experiments, that we can accelerate cultural change – for instance reducing inappropriate post-natal care or enhancing adoption of iron-fortified salt to counteract anemia. That is, we can change the behaviors of whole populations for the better.",[11,26,27],{},"We need support to expand this work and to explore the durability of such population-level changes in behavior and also to explore other mathematical rules that might make the process of network targeting even more efficient. Our goal is to provide a toolbox for interventionists to help them get the most out of their limited resources for improving public health and wellbeing in challenging settings.",{"title":29,"searchDepth":30,"depth":30,"links":31},"",2,[],"Communities of people – whether in developing world villages, in schools, or in workplaces – often have suboptimal norms, particularly in relation to health practices. But, using large-scale experiments, we have shown that it is possible to use network targeting algorithms to produce cascades of adoption of new health behaviors within rural villages in Honduras. By targeting just 5% of the residents of each village, who are chosen based on their position in the networks of connections within these villages, we substantially enhanced adoption of a desirable practice (e.g., the use of vitamins). (See our 2015 Lancet article.)","md",[35,39],{"id":36,"cost":37,"description":38},"A","$350,000","This level of support would cover the costs of adding two post-doctoral researchers to our research team to conduct focused analyses. It would also provide project support to enhance our current dissemination and outreach capacity over a 1-year period.",{"id":40,"cost":41,"description":42},"B","$2.2 million","This level of support would cover costs related to conducting a re-mapping of social networks in all 176 villages in Copan, Honduras as well as an additional wave of data collection of a health and behavior survey for our cohort of 30,000 people. This includes support for our research team to design and implement the study protocol as well as operational costs related to field data collection in Honduras over 2.5 years. Expected outcomes would include major new discoveries about how network science can have a positive impact on human societies, and specifically about how to exploit peer effects to lead to sustained social change.",{"description":44,"src":45,"position":46},"A member of the Human Nature Lab research team poses in front of a green field in Honduras.","\u002Fimages\u002Fprojects\u002Fchanging-population-behavior-by-targeting-structurally-influential-individuals.jpg","70% 30%",{},true,"\u002Fproject\u002Fchanging-population-behavior-by-targeting-structurally-influential-individuals",1,{"title":6,"description":32},"project\u002Fchanging-population-behavior-by-targeting-structurally-influential-individuals","How can we propel epidemics of positive cultural changes, such as the adoption of better health practices, from scratch? By using an understanding of the mathematics of social networks, it is possible to identify a small subset of people, in any population, whose structural position within the network makes them very influential. We can tap into this hidden group of influencers to drive the population towards desirable outcomes and improve human welfare.","kECsgWiJkNyCdv9HyEYajPvo3y43JQMVqe_q8drROPs",{"id":56,"title":57,"body":58,"description":62,"extension":33,"goals":68,"image":75,"meta":78,"navigation":48,"path":79,"priority":30,"seo":80,"stem":81,"summary":82,"__hash__":83},"projects\u002Fproject\u002Fhow-the-microbes-in-our-gut-affect-our-physical-and-mental-health.md","How the Microbes in Our Gut Affect Our Physical and Mental Health",{"type":8,"value":59,"toc":66},[60,63],[11,61,62],{},"There are more microbial cells living in and on our bodies than there are human cells that make up our bodies in the first place. The number of genes that these microbes have exceeds the number of human genes by more than an order of magnitude. Work over the past ten years has increasingly documented the impact of these microbes, collectively known as ‘the microbiome,’ on our own physical and mental health. They affect our risk for obesity, malnutrition, diabetes, depression, dementia, and many other outcomes. To complicate matters, the microbes within us have their own complex inter-relationships, such that constellations of species may work together to affect our lives.",[11,64,65],{},"To understand this, we propose to map the networks of microbial species based on whether they co-occur within people (similar to mapping whether animal species are inter-related based on whether they co-occur in the same physical place). We will use data from our long-term field site in Honduras, were we have already collected stool and spit from 2,000 people so far. We will discern whether any two species (out of the over 500 microbial species typically found in our guts) have a relationship to one another based on how often they co-occur in the thousands of humans we will examine. Then, we can use mathematical tools to assess the importance not only of particular species, but also of the microbial networks. This will allow us to explore how diverse communities of microbes work together to affect our risk for problems ranging from malnutrition to depression.",{"title":29,"searchDepth":30,"depth":30,"links":67},[],[69,72],{"id":36,"cost":70,"description":71},"$320,000","This level of support would provide funding to conduct specialized DNA sequencing as well as saliva proteome and metabolome analysis for 2,000 microbiome study participants over a 1- year period. This would result in new findings on the routes by which the microbiome might affect human wellbeing.",{"id":40,"cost":73,"description":74},"$1.7 million","Funds for this 2-year project would cover costs to conduct a second wave of data and sample collection for the initial 2,000 participants in our ongoing microbiome study, as well as microbiome sequencing for these samples. In addition to enriching our data set, this second wave of collection would allow us to explore the stability of the human microbiome over time as well as key transmission mechanisms important to the distribution of illness and wellness in a population.",{"position":76,"src":77},"50% 70%","\u002Fimages\u002Fprojects\u002Fhow-the-microbes-in-our-gut-affect-our-physical-and-mental-health.png",{},"\u002Fproject\u002Fhow-the-microbes-in-our-gut-affect-our-physical-and-mental-health",{"title":57,"description":62},"project\u002Fhow-the-microbes-in-our-gut-affect-our-physical-and-mental-health","Can we map networks of microbe species in our guts in order to identify a set of species crucial to our physical and mental health? Our bodies form the environment in which a large number of microbes live, and those microbes often work together to affect us, for better or worse.","HExlsyjMQKwAwrL0wMlVHgAPPrQPSiIJEuJ1PYD6WlY",{"id":85,"title":86,"body":87,"description":91,"extension":33,"goals":111,"image":118,"meta":121,"navigation":48,"path":122,"priority":123,"seo":124,"stem":125,"summary":126,"__hash__":127},"projects\u002Fproject\u002Fusing-bots-to-enhance-human-cooperation.md","Using Bots to Enhance Human Cooperation",{"type":8,"value":88,"toc":109},[89,92,106],[11,90,91],{},"Bots and AI entities (like Alexa or Siri) play an ever-increasing role in our everyday existence. Adding AI to our human social systems (to form what we call “hybrid systems” of humans and machines) may affect our ability to live and work together, for better or worse.",[11,93,94,95,100,101,105],{},"We have been exploring how AI may enhance our abilities to work together, showing how simple autonomous agents, when added into social groups, could make it easier for the groups of people to coordinate their actions. This “dumb AI” inserted into human social networks made outcomes better for the people involved, by helping the (much smarter) humans to help themselves. (",[15,96,99],{"href":97,"rel":98},"http:\u002F\u002Fhumannaturelab.net\u002Fpublications\u002Flocally-noisy-autonomous-agents-improve-global-human-coordination-in-network-experiments",[19],"See our 2017 Nature article.",") We have used our ",[102,103,104],"span",{},"breadboard","software platform to conduct experiments with over 30,000 people so far.",[11,107,108],{},"In new work, we are developing a new kind of “social assistant” that can be mixed into human groups, brokering social introductions in a way that rewires the network and that enhances the ability of groups of people to cooperate with one another. This technology can help with a broad and diverse set of problems, ranging from decreasing hatred and reducing political polarization online; connecting isolated, lonely elderly people; and equipping populations to work together to combat collective problems like climate change. We need support to conduct these fundamental experiments.",{"title":29,"searchDepth":30,"depth":30,"links":110},[],[112,115],{"id":36,"cost":113,"description":114},"$250,000","This level of support would cover costs related to additional pilot project work on using bots to enhance human cooperation, including support for software development on our \u003Ca href=\"http:\u002F\u002Fbreadboard.yale.edu\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"underline text-blue-500 hover:no-underline\">breadboard\u003C\u002Fa> platform, participant incentives, research assistance and analysis over a 1-year period.",{"id":40,"cost":116,"description":117},"$1.6 million","This level of support would cover costs related to funding our full research team over the course of 2.5 years to develop and execute game theory-driven experimental scenarios, exploring how AI agents (bots) can affect behavior and validating these discoveries in real-world scenarios in the US and Honduras. Outcomes would include publication of significant new discoveries.",{"position":119,"src":120},"50% 25%","\u002Fimages\u002Fprojects\u002Fusing-bots-to-enhance-human-cooperation.jpg",{},"\u002Fproject\u002Fusing-bots-to-enhance-human-cooperation",3,{"title":86,"description":91},"project\u002Fusing-bots-to-enhance-human-cooperation","How can online bots, endowed with particular kinds of AI, enhance human cooperation? By rewiring social connections using autonomous agents, we can make groups of people more effective at cooperation and better able to solve diverse collective actions problems.","sZ4B_hjgLoG1xxX1coLBy_YYObBMw_3rIid5YQS5fy4",{"id":129,"title":130,"body":131,"description":153,"extension":33,"goals":154,"image":160,"meta":163,"navigation":48,"path":164,"priority":165,"seo":166,"stem":167,"summary":168,"__hash__":169},"projects\u002Fproject\u002Funderstanding-the-roots-of-a-healthy-society.md","Understanding the Roots of a Healthy Society",{"type":8,"value":132,"toc":151},[133,148],[11,134,135,136,139,140,143,144,147],{},"Groups can have properties that transcend the individuals within them. While there are examples of healthy, vibrant communities all around us, many communities are plagued by dysfunction and are unable to meet the collective challenges they face. An analogy can help explain this: just as connecting the same carbon atoms differently has drastically different results – creating graphite or diamond – so too can putting the same people together in different ways result in functional or dysfunctional groups. In a stream of papers involving online experiments (published in PNAS in ",[102,137,138],{},"2011",", ",[102,141,142],{},"2014",", and ",[102,145,146],{},"2019","), we have shown this to be the case.",[11,149,150],{},"Now, we would like to assess, using a sample of 176 villages and 30,000 people in Honduras (where we have been working for four years), whether we can measure such properties in real-world settings and whether such measurements might account for the differential ability of some villages to enact change or take care of collective assets, like wells or forests. We will set up ‘labs in the field’ in this isolated rural area and measure the cooperativity of whole villages, and then we will merge this new data with existing data we have on the detailed network structure of these villages. We expect to be able to show that particular forms of social interactions, in actual field settings, are associated with more cooperation at the collective level, leading to more functional communities with better outcomes for their inhabitants.",{"title":29,"searchDepth":30,"depth":30,"links":152},[],"Groups can have properties that transcend the individuals within them. While there are examples of healthy, vibrant communities all around us, many communities are plagued by dysfunction and are unable to meet the collective challenges they face. An analogy can help explain this: just as connecting the same carbon atoms differently has drastically different results – creating graphite or diamond – so too can putting the same people together in different ways result in functional or dysfunctional groups. In a stream of papers involving online experiments (published in PNAS in 2011, 2014, and 2019), we have shown this to be the case.",[155,157],{"id":36,"cost":113,"description":156},"This level of support would cover the costs of conducting pilot work in the lab setting and in the field. Funds directly support team member effort as well as operations for the pilot testing in Honduras over a 1-year period.",{"id":40,"cost":158,"description":159},"$1.9 million","This level of support would cover the full design and implementation of this innovative research protocol using experimental tools to measure cooperation in176 villages in Copan, Honduras as well as analysis work by our research team over 2.5 years. Expected outcomes would include published findings from this novel research program examining how the actual structure of human interactions in rural villages affects the common good.",{"position":161,"src":162},"50% 60%","\u002Fimages\u002Fprojects\u002Funderstanding-the-roots-of-a-healthy-society.jpg",{},"\u002Fproject\u002Funderstanding-the-roots-of-a-healthy-society",4,{"title":130,"description":153},"project\u002Funderstanding-the-roots-of-a-healthy-society","Why do some communities thrive and others succumb to dysfunction? There are deep roots to a healthy society, and, by implementing novel experimental approaches, we are able to understand how social connections in groups affect the ability of individuals to work together.","G4VJ9jDxBYAkMxc-jORchDzXp1h4wfuOS6qNLMydgcQ",{"id":171,"title":172,"body":173,"description":177,"extension":33,"goals":186,"image":193,"meta":197,"navigation":48,"path":198,"priority":199,"seo":200,"stem":201,"summary":202,"__hash__":203},"projects\u002Fproject\u002Fusing-robots-to-prevent-human-calamities.md","Using Robots to Prevent Human Calamities",{"type":8,"value":174,"toc":184},[175,178,181],[11,176,177],{},"The introduction of machines into our midst is often seen as potentially harming our ability to work together or as risking our personal safety, as with the public’s fears about autonomous vehicles. Our recent work has shown how humanoid robots that speak in particular ways can affect the conversational dynamics of human groups and enhance their satisfaction with their joint problem-solving efforts. Our lab is studying many aspects of such “hybrid systems” composed of humans and machines interacting on the same playing field.",[11,179,180],{},"In new work, we hope to show how robots can help people better coordinate actions that they often otherwise coordinate poorly, leading to calamities like stampedes and ineffective evacuations during a disaster. We are building a model of a city and placing human-driven cars within it, that is, miniature cars that are remotely controlled by human drivers. We will study how AI-equipped cars that can also be added to the traffic might enhance the ability of the overall groups to navigate.",[11,182,183],{},"Other problems this line of work can address include stampedes in sporting events and religious festivals; slow-moving lines at theme parks; the difficulty of evacuation from buildings during earthquakes and fires; and rush-hour traffic jams. Machines in our midst can be programmed to help us to help ourselves.",{"title":29,"searchDepth":30,"depth":30,"links":185},[],[187,190],{"id":36,"cost":188,"description":189},"$180,000","This level of support would cover equipment and research support to design and execute a prototype over a 1- year period, including salary support for research coordinators and the research scientist in our team leading the work.",{"id":40,"cost":191,"description":192},"$1 million","This level of support would cover costs related to developing and testing the bot\u002FAI infrastructure (using both navigation and coordination as model systems), including support for research staff, software development, and data analysis over a 3-year period.",{"description":194,"src":195,"position":196},"A group of participants play a tablet based game with a physical robot.","\u002Fimages\u002Fprojects\u002Fusing-robots-to-prevent-human-calamities.jpg","50% 30%",{},"\u002Fproject\u002Fusing-robots-to-prevent-human-calamities",5,{"title":172,"description":177},"project\u002Fusing-robots-to-prevent-human-calamities","How can physical robots affect group behavior? By programming humanoid robots to speak and act in particular ways, we can modify how the humans observing the robots treat other humans, enhancing our ability to address collective action problems.","ikC2VepRcrn__vETv-HPPs-fwkjpnZ1LI7OIKF-1oP0",{"id":205,"title":206,"body":207,"description":225,"extension":33,"goals":226,"image":232,"meta":237,"navigation":48,"path":238,"priority":239,"seo":240,"stem":241,"summary":242,"__hash__":243},"projects\u002Fproject\u002Fthe-role-of-microbes-in-the-spread-of-emotional-states.md","The Role of Microbes in the Spread of Emotional States",{"type":8,"value":208,"toc":223},[209,220],[11,210,211,212,215,216,219],{},"In 2008, our lab generated the first network map of human emotions, published in the ",[102,213,214],{},"British Medical Journal",", showing that a person’s happiness (for instance) was associated with the happiness of their friends, their friends’ friends, and their friends’ friends’ friends. And we also developed new mathematical models to study such contagion (known as the ",[102,217,218],{},"SISa model","). But recent work by other labs has shown that the human microbiome (the constellation of microbes that live in and on our bodies) may play a role in human emotional states, such as depression and anxiety. In this project, we will study whether part of the spread in emotions we have previously documented might actually be related to the spread of such microbes.",[11,221,222],{},"To accomplish this objective, we will create network maps that measure various emotional states and also the microbiome in at least 2,000 people in villages in Honduras (where we have worked for over four years). We are seeking support to expand the number of people included in our dataset, to ascertain the genotypes of the microbes in larger samples, to measure the emotional states of more people, and to analyze the data for relationships among the microbiome and emotions. We expect to be able to show that the spread of microbes within households and among friends partly explains why people who are socially connected manifest similar emotional states.",{"title":29,"searchDepth":30,"depth":30,"links":224},[],"In 2008, our lab generated the first network map of human emotions, published in the British Medical Journal, showing that a person’s happiness (for instance) was associated with the happiness of their friends, their friends’ friends, and their friends’ friends’ friends. And we also developed new mathematical models to study such contagion (known as the SISa model). But recent work by other labs has shown that the human microbiome (the constellation of microbes that live in and on our bodies) may play a role in human emotional states, such as depression and anxiety. In this project, we will study whether part of the spread in emotions we have previously documented might actually be related to the spread of such microbes.",[227,230],{"id":36,"cost":228,"description":229},"$280,000","We seek funds to cover costs to conduct in-depth analysis exploring the idea of emotional contagion using our existing data set. Funds will cover the hiring of a dedicated post-doctoral researcher as well as general support for our data management team over a 2-year period.",{"id":40,"cost":191,"description":231},"Funding at this level would cover all operational and research management costs related to the expansion of our research dataset by recruiting 1,000 new participants as well as conducting microbiome sequencing analysis for this new set of individuals during the first year of the project. In addition, funds cover research data management and analysis costs during Year 2 of the project. Expected outcomes would include novel findings on the relationship of the microbiome to the spread of emotional states among people in a population",{"description":233,"src":234,"attribution":235,"position":236},"This image show a network graph with clusters of groups with similar emotions","\u002Fimages\u002Fprojects\u002Fthe-role-of-microbes-in-the-spread-of-emotional-states.png","David Kim","50% 20%",{},"\u002Fproject\u002Fthe-role-of-microbes-in-the-spread-of-emotional-states",6,{"title":206,"description":225},"project\u002Fthe-role-of-microbes-in-the-spread-of-emotional-states","Does the spread of microbes between people underlie emotional contagion? It’s been known for a long time that emotions spread from person to person; but maybe this is partly due to an actual, biological, contagion of the microbes within us. Perhaps people can literally “catch” emotional states.","bL0vkG8NCPufgzmQiANBck-LbGp67zQLPZCtebJUAgY",{"id":245,"title":246,"body":247,"description":272,"extension":33,"goals":273,"image":280,"meta":285,"navigation":48,"path":286,"priority":287,"seo":288,"stem":289,"summary":290,"__hash__":291},"projects\u002Fproject\u002Fhow-we-might-identify-nice-people-using-our-sense-of-smell.md","How We Might Identify Nice People Using Our Sense of Smell",{"type":8,"value":248,"toc":270},[249,258,267],[11,250,251,252,257],{},"A great deal of scientific evidence makes it clear that natural selection has shaped our abilities to choose good mates in order to maximize our fitness (in the Darwinian sense). But we believe that natural selection has also shaped our capacity to choose good friends. This idea is explored in ",[15,253,256],{"href":254,"rel":255},"http:\u002F\u002Fhumannaturelab.net\u002Fblueprint-the-book",[19],"Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society",", which was published in 2019.",[11,259,260,261,263,264,266],{},"In ",[102,262,138],{}," and ",[102,265,142],{}," we published two landmark papers in PNAS showing that friends resemble each other not just superficially (such as in political orientation or body size), but also genetically, possibly reflecting the active workings of an unknown biological system within us. Now, we wish to build on this work, exploring whether and how humans might have evolved to signal to each other how reliable a friendship partner they might be. We believe that it is likely that people should (to some small but discoverable extent) be able to sense who is likely to cooperate with them and be nice to them, and who is not. For various reasons, it is likely that this might be carried out through olfactory signals. In other words, we may give off subtle cues about our willingness to cooperate with others through the chemicals in our sweat that others can detect.",[11,268,269],{},"Here, we propose to collect data that combines people’s cooperative phenotype (measured with economic games, with which we have much experience) with analyses of their sweat constituents using Gas Chromatography Mass Spectroscopy. We plan to do this both in our laboratory at Yale with New Haven residents and also in Honduras, where we can look at our results in relation to the rich social network data we have already collected there.",{"title":29,"searchDepth":30,"depth":30,"links":271},[],"A great deal of scientific evidence makes it clear that natural selection has shaped our abilities to choose good mates in order to maximize our fitness (in the Darwinian sense). But we believe that natural selection has also shaped our capacity to choose good friends. This idea is explored in Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society, which was published in 2019.",[274,277],{"id":36,"cost":275,"description":276},"$300,000","Support at this level would cover costs related to piloting procedures and initial implementation of the work based in New Haven. It covers costs for  equipment, participant payments, laboratory materials and supplies, and GCMS  analysis over a 2-year period.",{"id":40,"cost":278,"description":279},"$850,000","Support at this level would cover costs related to initial piloting work in New Haven as well as implementation of the successful study protocols in our cohort of villages in Copan, Honduras, covering all operational costs to conduct field work and data analysis over a 3-year period.",{"description":281,"src":282,"position":283,"attribution":284},"A vial of liquid is being held underneath a microscope","\u002Fimages\u002Fprojects\u002Fhow-we-might-identify-nice-people-using-our-sense-of-smell.jpg","50% 75%","Photo by Science in HD on Unsplash",{},"\u002Fproject\u002Fhow-we-might-identify-nice-people-using-our-sense-of-smell",7,{"title":246,"description":272},"project\u002Fhow-we-might-identify-nice-people-using-our-sense-of-smell","Can humans detect chemical signals that clue us in to who can be trusted? We all have had the experience of instantly judging people to be trustworthy or  untrustworthy, and there is some evidence we do this by looking at people’s faces.  But humans might also respond to other cues, such as the constituents of sweat,  using our sense of smell.","LrVhGeGIlea0Vq0O1HLGz5Yf2NQrMrrSy0oQfwgFd2w",{"id":293,"title":294,"body":295,"description":317,"extension":33,"goals":318,"image":325,"meta":329,"navigation":48,"path":330,"priority":331,"seo":332,"stem":333,"summary":334,"__hash__":335},"projects\u002Fproject\u002Fhow-genes-affect-our-choice-of-friends.md","How Genes Affect Our Choice of Friends",{"type":8,"value":296,"toc":315},[297,308],[11,298,260,299,263,301,303,304,307],{},[102,300,138],{},[102,302,142],{}," we published two landmark papers in PNAS showing that friends resemble each other not just superficially (such as political orientation or body size), but also genetically. We showed that unrelated pairs of friends are as similar to each other as people who are actually third or fourth cousins. This finding, however, was documented in US-based populations, and we would like to see if it indeed holds in a very different environment, in Honduras. If so, this would be further support for the innate functions of friendship, as documented in the 2019 book, ",[15,305,256],{"href":254,"rel":306},[19],".",[11,309,310,311,314],{},"In our field site in Honduras, where we are following 30,000 people as part of a large public health study, we have mapped all the face-to-face networks in detail (using our ",[102,312,313],{},"Trellis"," software platform). And we have received permission to genotype these individuals (so far, we have resources to genotype 1,000 of them). But our scientific objectives require us to have a much larger sample. With such a sample, we could examine in detail what specific sets of genes are shared in pairs of friends, relative to strangers or relatives. This information will shed light on how evolution has driven us to seek out specific attributes for incorporation into our social networks.",{"title":29,"searchDepth":30,"depth":30,"links":316},[],"In 2011 and 2014 we published two landmark papers in PNAS showing that friends resemble each other not just superficially (such as political orientation or body size), but also genetically. We showed that unrelated pairs of friends are as similar to each other as people who are actually third or fourth cousins. This finding, however, was documented in US-based populations, and we would like to see if it indeed holds in a very different environment, in Honduras. If so, this would be further support for the innate functions of friendship, as documented in the 2019 book, Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society.",[319,322],{"id":36,"cost":320,"description":321},"$200,000","Support at this level would cover costs related to genotyping 1,000 research participants as well as support efforts of our research team conducting data analysis related to this topic over a 1-year period.",{"id":40,"cost":323,"description":324},"$1.8 million","Support at this level would cover all costs associated with recruitment of an additional 1,000 participants into our existing study and cover costs related to genotyping 2,000 samples over a 2-year period, allowing for the expansion of our genotyped dataset to 3,000 individuals. It provides funding support for our field operations and data analysis teams in both years. Expected outcomes would include novel findings on the genetic relationships among non-kin pairs of friends and addressing how our genes might make us seek out and bond with others who share those genes.",{"src":326,"description":327,"position":328},"\u002Fimages\u002Fprojects\u002Fhow-genes-affect-our-choice-of-friends.jpg","A complex network","center",{},"\u002Fproject\u002Fhow-genes-affect-our-choice-of-friends",8,{"title":294,"description":317},"project\u002Fhow-genes-affect-our-choice-of-friends","How and why are the friends we freely choose genetically similar to us? It seems likely that natural selection has shaped how we go about making and choosing friends, but this process, so fundamental to the workings of our societies, is still incompletely understood.","-y9smejWSTvxzvpluQ8tJoa1e8SCCLgFOLP6GcuRjBA",{"id":337,"title":338,"body":339,"description":343,"extension":33,"goals":355,"image":362,"meta":365,"navigation":48,"path":366,"priority":367,"seo":368,"stem":369,"summary":370,"__hash__":371},"projects\u002Fproject\u002Fusing-games-to-measure-workplace-group-effectiveness.md","Using Games to Measure Workplace Group Effectiveness",{"type":8,"value":340,"toc":353},[341,344,347],[11,342,343],{},"Managers struggle with getting people to work together, and the performance of teams may often have more to do with how people interact than with who they are as individuals. For instance, accident rates at factories staffed by similar assortments of people or rates of corporate policy violations (e.g., with respect to password sharing or absenteeism) may vary greatly across groups of otherwise similar employees. This variation may relate to how people are connected to each other or how they interact together to create norms within their groups. In other words, variation in many team performance outcomes may be a network phenomenon.",[11,345,346],{},"Just as connecting the same carbon atoms differently has drastically different results – creating graphite or diamond – so too can putting the same people together in different ways result in noteworthy productivity or distressing dysfunction. Groups can have properties not present in the workers themselves. We have shown this to be the case, both in online experiments with groups and in one workplace so far.",[11,348,349,350,352],{},"We believe that new properties – like innovativeness, safety, reliability, cooperation, and so on – can emerge within groups at workplaces. In this project, we will build on tools – specifically, our ",[102,351,104],{}," software and our online scenario games – that we have developed to do field tests of this claim and to elucidate how we can specifically identify features of groups that lead to different kinds of success and failure.",{"title":29,"searchDepth":30,"depth":30,"links":354},[],[356,359],{"id":36,"cost":357,"description":358},"$125,000","This level of support would cover costs to consult with our research team. We would provide guidance on the execution of a short-term project testing the applicability of our current tools in a workplace environment made available by the donor.",{"id":40,"cost":360,"description":361},"$1.5 million","This level of support would provide an opportunity to collaborate directly with our research team to create a project using our innovative scientific methods as well as our partner’s interests, implementing strategies at their business site to seek practical solutions to the problem of team assessment. It provides funding for the implementation and analysis of the work conducted by our research team over a 2-year period.",{"position":363,"src":364},"50% 35%","\u002Fimages\u002Fprojects\u002Fusing-games-to-measure-workplace-group-effectiveness.jpg",{},"\u002Fproject\u002Fusing-games-to-measure-workplace-group-effectiveness",9,{"title":338,"description":343},"project\u002Fusing-games-to-measure-workplace-group-effectiveness","Can a one-hour test of group performance in the workplace be as accurate as manager’s ratings based on yearlong evaluations? Groups of workers jointly have distinctive properties related to their effectiveness, and it is possible to measure such collective properties using novel tests.","yTM3Xye0CZryQZcUBOhpV4JBYldVZBWQgd4QJaH6di4",1786129613761]