Reducing opinion polarization: Effects of exposure to similar people with differing political views.

In a large-scale, preregistered experiment on informal political communication, we algorithmically matched participants, varying two dimensions: 1) the degree of incidental similarity on nonpolitical features; and 2) their stance agreement on a contentious political topic. Matched participants were first shown a computer-generated social media profile of their match highlighting all the shared nonpolitical features; then, they read a short, personal, but argumentative, essay written by their match about the reduction of inequality via redistribution of wealth by the government. We show that support for redistribution increased and polarization decreased for participants with both mild and strong views, regardless of their political leaning.

Adding noise to the institution: an experimental welfare investigation of the contribution-based grouping mechanism.

Real-world institutions dealing with social dilemma situations are based on mechanisms that are rarely implemented without flaw. Usually real-world mechanisms are noisy and imprecise, that is, which we call 'fuzzy'. We therefore conducted a novel type of voluntary contributions experiment where we test a mechanism by varying its fuzziness.

nodeGame: Real-time, synchronous, online experiments in the browser.

nodeGame is a free, open-source JavaScript/ HTML5 framework for conducting synchronous experiments online and in the lab directly in the browser window. It is specifically designed to support behavioral research along three dimensions: (i) larger group sizes, (ii) real-time (but also discrete time) experiments, and (iii) batches of simultaneous experiments. nodeGame has a modular source code, and defines an API (application programming interface) through which experimenters can create new strategic environments and configure the platform.

Peer review and competition in the Art Exhibition Game.

To investigate the effect of competitive incentives under peer review, we designed a novel experimental setup called the Art Exhibition Game. We present experimental evidence of how competition introduces both positive and negative effects when creative artifacts are evaluated and selected by peer review. Competition proved to be a double-edged sword: on the one hand, it fosters innovation and product diversity, but on the other hand, it also leads to more unfair reviews and to a lower level of agreement between reviewers.

On disciplinary fragmentation and scientific progress.

Why are some scientific disciplines, such as sociology and psychology, more fragmented into conflicting schools of thought than other fields, such as physics and biology? Furthermore, why does high fragmentation tend to coincide with limited scientific progress? We analyzed a formal model where scientists seek to identify the correct answer to a research question. Each scientist is influenced by three forces: (i) signals received from the correct answer to the question; (ii) peer influence; and (iii) noise. We observed the emergence of different macroscopic patterns of collective exploration, and studied how the three forces affect the degree to which disciplines fall apart into divergent fragments, or so-called "schools of thought".