CAREER: Applying the exploration-exploitation tradeoff to understand how people connect

孤独感正在上升，并增加了心理和身体健康问题的风险。为什么越来越多的人在努力建立和维持社会关系？与他人沟通需要时间、精力，有时还需要金钱。这些资源是有限的，所以人们必须决定哪些友谊(如果有的话)值得投资。他们应该加入一个俱乐部来结交新朋友吗？或者他们应该把时间、精力和金钱集中在加强他们现有的友谊上？他们应该如何在交谈中投入时间和精力--通过闲聊或更深入地探讨一个新话题？答案取决于一个人的个性和目标。但这也取决于背景：例如，一个人是否对社区来说是新的，社区的流动率有多大，社区是资源丰富还是匮乏。这项研究询问人们是否会调整他们的社交策略，以最大限度地适应环境。一个人的环境与所选择的社交方式之间的不匹配可能会增加与社会脱节的风险。这些发现有望为未来旨在减少孤独和改善社区健康的干预措施提供参考。目前的项目研究了环境如何影响人们在社会关系中探索新机会的决定，而不是利用现有的机会。七项研究测量和操纵了特定背景下的社会约束，以确定a)人们如何选择互动伙伴，b)他们如何选择谈话主题，以及c)社会探索和剥削的心理社会后果。每项研究都考察了不同背景下的社交行为，包括与假想的社交伙伴玩电脑游戏，与同龄人一起上教室，在线聊天室，视频通话，以及大学校园的日常生活。这项研究将对照实验和基于代理的建模与通过人群跟踪、移动感知和主题分析捕获的自然行为相结合。将跨学科的探索-开发框架与社会心理学相结合，促进了对日常社会选择的原因和结果的理解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Loneliness is on the rise and increases the risk of mental and physical health issues. Why are increasing numbers of people struggling to form and maintain social ties? Connecting with others takes time, energy, and sometimes money. These resources are limited, so people must decide which friendships, if any, are worth the investment. Should they join a club to make new friends? Or should they focus their time, energy, and money on strengthening their existing friendships? And how should they invest their time and energy during a conversation – by making small talk or delving deeper into a new topic? The answer depends on a person’s personality and goals. But it also depends on the context: for instance, whether a person is new to the community, how much turnover there is in the community, and whether the community is rich in resources or suffering from scarcity. This research asks if people adjust their social connection strategies to optimally fit the context. A mismatch between a person’s environment and the selected approach to socializing might increase the risk of becoming social disconnected. The findings are expected to inform future interventions aimed at reducing loneliness and improving the health of communities.The current project examines how context influences people’s decisions to explore new opportunities in social connections versus exploit existing ones. Seven studies measure and manipulate social constraints in a given context to determine a) how people choose interaction partners, b) how they choose conversation topics, and c) the psychosocial consequences of social exploration and exploitation. Each study examines social behavior in a different context, including a computer game with hypothetical social partners, a classroom with peers, an online chatroom, a video call, and daily life on a college campus. The research combines controlled experiments and agent-based modeling with naturalistic behaviors captured by crowd tracking, mobile sensing, and topic analysis. Integrating the interdisciplinary explore-exploit framework with social psychology advances an understanding of the causes and consequences of everyday social choices.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.