CAREER: Facilitating Intergroup Communication and Cooperation

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

This project promotes theoretical both understanding and technology development on the topic of facilitating communication and cooperation between distinct groups. Effective intergroup communication provides a number of benefits to society, including stronger civic engagement, better cooperation, and increased resources for the whole. However, groups face challenges trusting each other in collective action; in-group versus out-group effects are known to lead to negative stereotyping and exclusion of other groups, reducing the chances of beneficial communication and cooperation at both the individual and the social level. This project aims to leverage an emerging understanding of communication behavior, along with techniques from network science, economics, and natural language processing, to increase the chance that people successfully bridge these differences and form stronger cooperative and civic ties. To achieve its goals, the project will develop models of intergroup communication and the influence of cooperation in social networks to inform interventions that improve communication and cooperation in online contexts. The investigators will first develop an experimental system to examine communication and connection patterns for cooperation under circumstances where there is group identity in human networks. Then, the team will iteratively design algorithms that use natural language processing and conversational AI techniques, along with network science and user modeling methods, to suggest conversation partners, topics, and styles that may help people make connections across groups more effectively. These will be tested with a combination of laboratory and field studies to measure the effectiveness of the developed interventions with robust causality and external validity. Together, the project will improve understanding of how technology might help a diverse society such as ours operate more effectively. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.