Virtual peer pressure in citizen science
Thursday, August 25, 2016 - 07:31
in Psychology & Sociology
Peer pressure is a proven social motivator, and seeing a friend or colleague succeed at a task can boost individual effort. Researchers at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering probed this decidedly human attribute—sensitivity to competition from peers—and found that not only is virtual pressure from a computer-simulated peer just as motivating as the real thing, but that "fake" competition can be used for the good of science.