Theoretical and Empirical Modeling of Identity and Sentiments in Collaborative Groups

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THEMIS.COG explores the social and psychological mechanisms of self-organized collaboration, focussing on the open, collaborative software development platform GitHub. The project team includes a sociologist (US), a cognitive scientist (Germany), a computer scientist and a software engineer (Canada). We will provide new data-driven theoretical insights into what motivates self-organized collaborations and what determines their success. We will apply a computational model of human interaction that makes explicit predictions about online interactions in a collaborative group, based on the notion group members hold identities that are learnable, mathematically describable, and complementary to those of other group members. The project will provide empirical validation of sociological theory and formal answers to important social science questions about collaboration, and will expose novel research questions by expanding a theoretical model of small groups to the network level.