Collaboration Pentland Theory Group

Collaboration theory group Presentation on Pentland's Honest Signals (2008) & Social Physics (2015) (Chapters 1-4 only)

HONEST SIGNALS (2008) "Honest signals are behaviors that are sufficiently expensive to fake that they can form the basis for a reliable channel of communication" (17). "Four honest signals—influence, mimicry, activity, and consistency...are strongly predictive of future behavior. We know...they unconsciously change other people’s impressions of your attention, trust, interest, and focus. Moreover, we know that they...reliably predict people’s future actions across a wide range of circumstances" (18).

Interview with Sandy Pentland's about Honest Signals (2008) (below)

"Just as in a poker game, we are continually immersed in a network of social signals during our daily lives. The constant demands of reading and responding to these signals require enormous energy. As with our other senses, we are largely unaware of this virtuoso performance. All that usually reaches our conscious mind are impressions of attention, determination, supportiveness, and the like. But with practice, we can learn to notice these signals, and that is the difference between the winning poker player and the loser" (34).