Carolyn Parkinson
University of California-Los Angeles, CA·Psychology·Early-career
People spend a lot of attention tracking who knows whom: who is a friend of a friend, who sits at the center of a group, how many "degrees of separation" lie between two people. This ability likely helped drive the evolution of the human brain, and it underlies everyday trust, empathy and social influence.
- Fields
Psychology
Neuroscience
Social Science
- Topics
social networks
social network analysis
social neuroscience
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2027
What they work on
- Map the real-world social networks of several bounded communities, then use behavioral and neuroimaging experiments with their members to measure how knowing others' network positions shapes thought, emotion and behavior.
- Test how perceptions of social network distance and network centrality (how well-connected a person is) influence prosocial behavior such as helping others.
- Examine how the brain's representation of social network knowledge changes across contexts and differs between individuals, including how attuned each person is to this information.
More about the research
Yet little is known about how the brain stores the structure of the real-world social networks a person belongs to, or how that knowledge changes what people think, feel and do.
Why it matters
Understanding how people represent their social networks could inform efforts to understand social influence and interpersonal trust, both of which shape how ideas and behaviors spread through communities. The abstract notes the findings could also inform national security efforts to limit the targeted spread of misinformation through social networks.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Aubrey Kelly
Emory University, GA·Neuroscience
Test whether the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVN) suppresses fear circuitry to enable spiny mice to approach unfamiliar individuals and form new groups, using DREADDs to control specific neurons.
Jasmin Cloutier
University of Delaware, DE·Psychology
Compare brain activity, measured with functional MRI, while people form first impressions of human versus artificial intelligence (AI) partners.
Jaideep Srivastava
University of Minnesota, MN·Computer Science
Investigate how information spreads through online social networks and develop tools that trace content back to its original sources and identify authentic information.
The school
University of California-Los Angeles: 84 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 803 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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