SFI External Professor Mahzarin Banaji (Harvard University) has received a BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award ...

A recent study by SFI Postdoctoral Fellow Andrew Steir and Professor Brandon Ogbunu in NPJ Complexity shows that many U.S.

Music is a universal language across time, peoples, and geographies, and also fundamental to our human experience, a result ...

In a network, pairs of individual elements, or nodes, connect to each other; those connections can represent a sprawling system with myriad individual links. A hypergraph goes deeper: It gives ...

In many careers, a person must learn foundational skills before advancing more deeply into their profession. Computer programmers need a solid foundation in basic mathematics; nurses must gain ...

The oceans teem with photosynthesizing bacteria, tiny-tailed dinoflagellates gobbling other plankton, algae surrounded by intricate glass skeletons. In the 1960s, the ecologist G. Evelyn Hutchinson ...

Cultural traits — the information, beliefs, behaviors, customs, and practices that shape the character of a population — are influenced by conformity, the tendency to align with others, or ...

Historians of philosophy are like painters; by giving an interpretation of another philosopher’s problems and concepts, they paint philosophical portraits. SFI Research Fellow Anthony Eagan paints ...

Originally published in Nautilus Magazine's "Reality" issue, September 2024. Republished with permission. I remember the day when, at the age of 7, I realized that I wanted to figure out how reality ...

We live in a complex world — one that is increasingly connected, evolving, technological, volatile, and potentially poised for catastrophe. And yet we continue to treat the world as if it were simple.

Researchers who study belief dynamics often use analogies to understand and model the complex cognitive–social systems that underly why we believe the things we do and how those beliefs can change ...

Getting individuals to act in the best interest of society can be a tricky balancing act, one that often walks a fine line between trying to convince people to act of their own volition, versus ...