Tag: Oral Session 3 C

Knowledge Transfer and Performance in Differently Structured Teams

Presenter(s): Alexander Pulaski

Faculty Mentor(s): Ralph Heidl

Oral Session 3 C

In the business world, the mutual understanding and sharing of knowledge is a critical factor of success. There is a plethora of research that indicates the network of social relationships within organizations influences how valuable information is shared and diffused. Traditionally, business organizations have used hierarchical structures to maintain stability and impose pathways for communication. However, non-hierarchical modes (which are flatter and less rigid) of organizing have recently emerged with mixed results. To better understand the micro-processes that drive the costs and benefits of knowledge exchange in structured and unstructured networks, the proposed research seeks to compare and contrast the evolution of hierarchically and non- hierarchically organized collaborative work using surveys and Bluetooth enabled sensor devices. Using these devices, continuous data streams recording varying proximity states among study participants will be examined and analyzed to illustrate how communication is occurring and changing. This effort will shed new light on how hierarchical and non-hierarchical teams evolve in collaborative work settings.

Referential communication task in a naturalistic setting

Presenter(s): Aaron Macarthur

Faculty Mentor(s): Dare Baldwin & Netanel Weinstein

Oral Session 3 C

Reaching shared understanding in conversation is an important part of daily life. Various mechanisms facilitate this achievement including: the ability to engage in perspective taking, sensitivity to gaze, sharing attention, and making pragmatic inferences about an interlocutor’s intent. Prior research on this topic has prioritized experimental control over ecological validity by placing participants in highly constrained situations. We addressed these limitations in the present study by correlating performance in a modified referential communication task with participants’ performance on several standard personality and socio-cognitive measures. Specifically, pairs of participants were placed on either side of a shelf with a series of cells and prepared a cake from a given recipe card. Some of the cells on the shelf were visible to only one participant or the other, while some cells were visible to both. We measured participants use of various disambiguation strategies (e.g. gaze checking or making a clarification request) and examine whether performance on standard socio-cognitive measures predict these behaviors. This research helped shed light on the relationship between standard decontextualized socio- cognitive measures and real-life social interaction as well as the extent to which these measures predict individual differences in the way people achieve shared understanding in conversation.

Generation Z’s Hidden Social Media Rule Book

Presenter(s): Taylor Kissinger

Faculty Mentor(s): Kim Sheehan

Oral Session 3 C

This study explores how Generation Z’s behavioral expectations for each other on social media impact their relationships, health, and overall well-being. According to a 2016 study published in the Journal of Adolescence, about half of the time that teens spend on the internet is dedicated to social media. Adolescents experience heightened pressure to be active on social media out of fear of becoming “irrelevant” or fading into the background of their friends’ social circles. In addition, previous studies have shown that young people are experiencing heightened levels of depression, lack of sleep, problematic social media usage, and social media addiction. And unlike any previous research, this study looks at the intersection of social media usage with inter/intrapersonal relationships and wellness. Generation Zers who consistently use social media must think about how their online activity could be perceived by their friends. Due to social media’s transparency in revealing real-time activity, the digital landscape has created an authentic level of complexity to relationships and a coinciding unspoken set of social standards to abide by online. I predict that these hidden norms are pervasive and relevant in the minds of Generation Z, that Gen Zers individually hold themselves to lower social media standards than their peers, and that social media expectations negatively impact their real-life friendships. Eighty-six participants completed a scenario-based survey that gauged how they would feel or react in a situation on a given social media platform. The results show that social media is no longer an outside element from interpersonal communication; it is an entangled third entity that can drastically and irreversibly change a friendship. It is imperative to study how online interactions can alter relationships so that we can foster healthy social media usage in the coming generations.