CSS unites computer science, statistics, and social science to solve challenging real-world problems using digital data and platforms. Through mass collaboration with industry, government, and civil society, our research generates insights that advance basic science in the service of practical applications.
Computational Social Science Lab at Penn
CSS unites computer science, statistics, and social science to solve challenging real-world problems using novel theories. Through our mass collaboration with industry, government, and civil society, our path-breaking research generates solutions which are both innovative and practical.
News
Grumpy Voters Want Better Stories. Not Statistics
In the final count, Trump collected 312 electoral votes to 226 for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. While some votes are still being counted, the broad trends that won the election for Trump are also coming into focus. Echoing public opinion scholars, Duncan Watts of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, author of Everything Is Obvious Once You Know the Answer, believes that Trump benefited from a broad anti-incumbent trend seen in elections worldwide; that sentiment swung enough undecided voters to his tally to win him the swing states needed for victory.
Commonsensicality: A New Platform to Measure Your Common Sense
Most of us believe that we possess common sense; however, we find it challenging to articulate which of our beliefs are commonsensical or how “common” we think they are. Now, the CSSLab invites participants to measure their own level of common sense by taking a survey on a new platform, The common sense project.
Since its launch, the project has received significant media attention; it was recently featured in The Independent, The Guardian, and New Scientist, attracting over 100,000 visitors to the platform just this past week.
CSSLab 2024 End-of-Summer Research Seminar Recap
On August 2nd, ten undergraduate and Master’s students showcased their research at the third annual Student Research Mini-Conference, which featured presentations from all four major research groups at the Computational Social Science Lab (CSSLab) at Penn: PennMAP, COVID-Philadelphia/Human Mobility, Group Dynamics, and Common Sense. Here are the highlights from this conference:
Over the past 100 years, social science has generated a tremendous number of theories on the topics of individual and collective human behaviour. However, it has been much less successful at reconciling the innumerable inconsistencies and contradictions among these competing explanations.
—
Duncan Watts
CSSLab Founder
Over the past 100 years, social science has generated a tremendous number of theories on the topics of individual and collective human behaviour. However, it has been much less successful at reconciling the innumerable inconsistencies and contradictions among these competing explanations.
—
Duncan Watts
CSS Lab Founder