Selected Papers Under Review

Schoolkids, Street Gangs, and Warring Nations: Toward a General Model of Social Action

C. Ben Gibson

Many social behaviors unfold as sequences of directed interactions between individuals, groups, or entities within a given environment. These social action networks encompass a wide range of behaviors, from conversations in the classroom, to digital communication, to interactions between nations. A common thread in analyses of social action is understanding how prior actions shape the sequence of subsequent actions within a given social environment. Conversation analysis, with its focus on sequential constraints and dependencies in turn-taking, provides a natural framework for understanding social action more broadly. This study examines which sequential tendencies are universal across social action networks and which vary based on social ecology. We apply a uniform relational event model (REM) to 104 social action networks across 11 domains, spanning both communicative (e.g., email exchanges, social media, classroom discussions) and non-communicative (e.g., gang violence, glances, international conflict) settings. Our analysis explores whether interaction patterns discovered in face-to-face conversation — such as sequencing rules and preferential attachment — govern social action broadly or vary based on environmental constraints. In all or nearly all contexts, we observe strong tendencies for preferential attachment, reciprocity, and repetition of previous actions. Many differences between environments appear to be attributable to aspects of the social ecology, such as the visibility of interactions and the presence of a durable social network underlying interactions. Despite these informative differences, our findings demonstrate a remarkable consistency in the structure of sequential action in varied social environments, suggesting similar mechanisms for how actors organize, interpret, and react to behaviors in group contexts ranging from classroom interactions to international conflict.

Can an Eye for an Eye Turn the Whole World Sanctioned?

Khrystyna Holynska, Dr. Renato Corbetta, Carter T. Butts, and C. Ben Gibson

International sanctions have been an increasingly common tool for enforcing international norms of behavior, among other goals. There is continuing debate on what drives sanctioning behavior: while IR theories of sanctions have a long empirical history, more recent studies identify a need to extend these theories to better account for the endogenous nature of state sanction networks. Using a combination of network and IR-based insights, we aim to build a theory-driven, interpretable model of international sanctions that has high predictive utility. Using a separable version of dynamic network logistic regression, we test network theories of “Matthew effects,” reciprocity, and previous state-level sanctioning activity alongside traditional IR theories regarding the democratic peace, cultural or institutional similarity, power imbalance, and trade. Though we find that mechanisms from established IR theories largely hold with the inclusion of network endogeneity, endogenous network effects are more powerful than traditional IR concepts for predictive accuracy of the sanctioning network. We also find considerable differences for factors driving the imposition of sanctions (tie formation) versus persistence of sanction regimes (persistence), pointing to the importance of treating such effects separately.

Published Papers

      • Ben Gibson and Burrel Vann Jr. “Bootstrapped Robustness Assessment for QCA.” 2025. Forthcoming for the Journal of Mathematical Sociology. preprint
        • Clifford C. Clogg Award for Best Graduate Student Paper, Methodology Section, American Sociological Association.
      • Sabrina Mai, Renshaw, S. L., Gibson, B., Sutton, J., & Butts, C. T. 2025. “Hearts for hazards: A framework for understanding relationships between message interactions, with application to hazard communications.” The Journal of Mathematical Sociology, 1–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/0022250X.2025.2481367
      • Ben Gibson, Cheryl Damberg, Jose Escarce, Luke Matthews, Shiyuan Zhang, Megan Schuler, and Ioana Popescu. 2025. “Referral networks effects on racial differences in high-quality hospital use for open heart surgery.” Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. 10.1161/CIRCOUTCOMES.123.010778
        • Ben Gibson, Aaron B. Frank, Khrystyna Holynska, Jessie Wang. 2025. “Shaping Elite Networks: Strategic Cooperation with China.” Chapter in Forthcoming Edited Volume, U.S.-China Economic Competition: Gains and Risks in a Complex Economic and Geopolitical Relationship.
        • Ioana Popescu, Ben Gibson, Luke Matthews, Shiyuan Zhang, Jose J Escarce, Megan Schuler, Cheryl L Damberg. 2024. “The segregation of physician networks providing care to black and white patients with heart disease: Concepts, measures, and empirical evaluation.” Social Science and Medicine. DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.116511
        • Nabeel Qureshi, Sandra Berry, Cheryl L Damberg, Ben Gibson, and Ioana Popescu. 2024. “Referrals and Black-White Coronary Heart Disease Treatment Disparities: A Qualitative Study of Primary Care Physician Perspectives.” Journal of General Internal Medicine. 10.1007/s11606-024-09175-x
        • Ben Gibson, Sarah C. Vos, Jeannette Sutton, and Carter T. Butts. 2023. “Practical Imputation of Follower Counts of Public Health Twitter Accounts.” Sociological Methods & Research.
        • Ben Gibson and Carter T. Butts. 2023. “The Effect of Temporal Adjustments on Dynamic Sexual Contact Network Models.” Social Networks. DOI: 10.1177/0049124120926210

        • Luke Matthews, Cheryl Damberg, Shiyuan Zhang, Jose Escarce, Ben Gibson, Megan Schuler, and Ioana Popescu. 2023. “Within-physician differences in patient-sharing between primary care physicians and cardiologists who treat White and Black patients with heart disease.” Journal of the American Heart Association. DOI: 10.1161/JAHA.123.030653
        • Ben Gibson, Norbou Buchler, Blaine Hoffman, and Claire Le Fleur. 2021. “Endogeneity and Permeation in an Organizational Communication Network.” Social Networks. DOI: 10.1016/j.socnet.2020.12.007
        • Claire Le Fleur, Blaine Hoffman, Ben Gibson, and Norbou Buchler. 2021. “Team Performance in a Series of Regional and National US Cybersecurity Defense Competitions: Generalizable Effects of Training and Functional Role Specialization.” Computers and Security.  DOI: 10.1016/j.cose.2021.102229
        • Sarah C. Vos, Jeannette Sutton, Ben Gibson, and Carter T. Butts. 2020. “#Ebola: Emergency Risk Messages on Social Media.” Health Security. DOI: 10.1089/hs.2019.0158
        • Kavanagh, Jennifer, Quentin E. Hodgson, and C. Ben Gibson. 2020. “How is the pandemic influencing intention to vote?” RR-A112-15
        • Hartnett, Gavin S.; Vardavas, Raffaele; Baker, Lawrence; Chaykowsky, Michael; Gibson, C. Ben; Girosi, Federico; Kennedy, David P.; Osoba, Osonde. 2020. “Deep generative modeling in network science with applications to public policy research” WRA843-1
        • Kavanagh, Jennifer; Gibson, C. Ben; Cherney, Samantha. 2020. “An assessment of state voting processes: preparing for elections during a pandemic.“ RR-A112-8
        • Ben Gibson, Norbou Buchler, Claire le Fleur, and Blaine Hoffman. 2019. “Participation Shifts Predict Long-Tailed Degree Distributions in a Communication Network.” PLoS One. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0217240
        • Sutton, Jeannette N.; Scott L. Renshaw; Sarah Vos; Michele K. Olson; Robert Prestley; Ben Gibson; Carter T. Butts. 2019. “Getting the Word Out, Rain or Shine: The Impact of Message Features and Hazard Context on Message Passing Online.” Weather, Climate, and Society. DOI: 10.1175/WCAS-D-19-0021.1
        • Sutton, Jeannette, Sarah Vos, Ben Gibson, and Carter T. Butts. 2019. “Celebrity Cancer on Twitter: Mapping a Novel Opportunity for Cancer Prevention” Cancer Control. DOI: 10.1177/1073274819825826
        • Vos, S. C., Sutton, J., Yu, Y., Renshaw, S., Olson, M. K., Gibson, B., and Butts, T. 2018. “Retweeting Risk Communication: The Role of Threat and Efficacy.”  Risk Analysis. DOI: 10.1111/risa.13140
        • Ben Gibson and Timothy B. Mayhall. 2017. “Comprehension Context and Sponsor Effects in a Hospital Mental Health Study.” Sociological Methods and Research. DOI: 10.1177/0049124117729706
        • Sutton, J., Vos, S. C., Olson, M. K.„ Woods, C. W., Cohen, E., Gibson, C. B., Phillips, N., Studts, J., Eberth, J., & Butts, C. T.. 2017. “Lung Cancer Messages on Twitter: Content Analysis and Evaluation.” Journal of the American College of Radiology. DOI: 10.1016/j.jacr.2017.09.043
        • Fitzhugh, Sean M., Ben Gibson, Emma S. Spiro, Carter T. Butts. 2016. “Spatio-temporal Filtering Techniques for the Detection of Disaster-related Communication.” Social Science Research. DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2016.04.023
        • Sutton, Jeannette, Ben Gibson, Nolan Edward Phillips, Emma S. Spiro, Cedar League, Britta Johnson, Sean M. Fitzhugh, Carter T. Butts. 2015. “A cross-hazard analysis of terse message retransmission on Twitter.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073%2Fpnas.1508916112
        • Sutton, Jeannette, Ben Gibson, Emma S. Spiro, Cedar League, Sean M. Fitzhugh, Butts, Carter T. 2015. “What it Takes to Get Passed On: Message Content, Style, and Structure as Predictors of Retransmission in the Boston Marathon Bombing Response.” PLOS One. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0134452
        • Sutton, Jeannette, Emma S. Spiro, Sean Fitzhugh, Britta Johnson, Ben Gibson, and Carter T. Butts. 2014. “Terse Message Amplification in the Boston Bombing Response.” International Journal of Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management. PDF
        • Sutton, Jeannette, Emma S. Spiro, Britta Johnson, Sean Fitzhugh, C. Ben Gibson, and Carter T. Butts. 2014. “Warning Tweets: Serial Transmission of Warning Messages During a Disaster Event.” Information, Communication and Society. DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2013.862561