Arnout van de Rijt
Associate Professor (joint with IACS)
Ph.D. 2007, Cornell
(631) 632-7704
arnout.vanderijt@stonybrook.edu
Areas of Interest
Social networks, cumulative advantage
Bio
My research exploits novel data collection opportunities enabled by present-day communication technology to answer longstanding questions about the origins of social order and societal inequality.
My work on social networks seeks to understand complex patterns of social connectedness as the aggregate combination
of many individuals following elementary decision rules on whom to connect to and
whom to avoid. Examples of such decision rules are “a friend of a friend is a friend”,
“reach out to people you wouldn’t normally hang out with”, “avoid being in the minority”,
and "cultivate competing ties as to improve your bargaining position" . Agent-based
computational models show that the networks that emerge in the aggregate as the result
of such purposive action often exhibit undesirable structural features that no individual
intended.
CV
Selected publications
Vincenz Frey and Arnout van de Rijt. 2016. "Arbitrary Inequality in Reputation Sysstems." Nature Scientific Reports 6:38304. pdf
Eran Shor, Arnout van de Rijt, Alex Miltsov, Vivek Kulkarni, and Steven Skiena. "A
Paper Ceiling: Explaining the Persistent Underrepresentation of Females in Printed
News Coverage." American Sociological Review, forthcoming.
Arnout van de Rijt, Soong Moon Kang, Michael Restivo and Akshay Patil. "Field Experiments of Success-Breeds-Success Dynamics." Forthcoming in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Press: Economist, Time, Daily News, Daily Mail, National Geographic
Arnout van de Rijt, Eran Shor, Charles Ward and Steven Skiena. "Only Fifteen Minutes? The Social Stratification of Fame in English-Language Media." American Sociological Review 78(2):266-89. Press: LA TimesToronto StarGlobe and Mail Newsdaypodcast pdf
Michael Restivo and Arnout van de Rijt. 2012. “Experimental Study of Informal Rewards in Peer Production.” PLoS ONE 7(3): e34358. pdf
Arnout van de Rijt. 2011. “The Micro-Macro Link for the Theory of Structural Balance.” Journal of Mathematical Sociology35(1):94-113. pdf
Arnout van de Rijt, Michael W. Macy, and David Siegel. 2009. "Comment: Neighborhood Chance and Neighborhood Change". American Journal of Sociology 114(4):1166-80. pdf
Vincent Buskens and Arnout van de Rijt. 2008. “Dynamics of Networks if Everyone Strives for Structural Holes.” American Journal of Sociology 114(2):371-407. Discussed on orgtheory.net. This paper received the 2009 Best Article Award from the European Academy of Sociology and an honorary mention in the 2009 ASA Math. Soc. Best Article competition. Related work with Robb Willer earned the 2004 ASA Math. Soc. Graduate Student Best Paper Award. pdf
Arnout van de Rijt and Michael W. Macy. 2006. "Power and Dependence in Intimate Exchange." Social Forces 84(3):1455-70. pdf