Princeton-Humboldt Cooperation and Collective Cognition Network (CoCCoN)

CoCCoN is an interdisciplinary network supported through the strategic partnership program between Princeton University and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. It offers a unique collaborative environment for research and exchange on the emergence of cooperation and collective cognition in human and animal systems by bringing together scientists from Princeton and HU Berlin from such different fields as biology, physics, psychology, social sciences, economics, and engineering, with both empirical and theoretical backgrounds.

Our aim is to focus on two main questions: (1) the role of social interactions and interaction networks for dynamics of complex social, socio-economic and socio-ecologial systems, and (2) fundamental dynamics governing the spreading of behavior, so-called “behavioral contagion”, and its role in collective cognition. Specific attention will be paid to possible applications of the research towards promoting sustainability in coupled socio-economic-environmental systems and understanding collective risk perception in human and animal groups.

A core part of the network activity are interdisciplinary workshops and smaller scale individual research visits specifically aimed also at junior researchers (young graduate students, Master & PhD level), which shall give students the opportunity to gather early experience in international collaboration, while working on self-determined projects. A special methodological focus of the network will be novel visualization methods for presentation and analysis of complex network data.

Within CoCCoN the following research topics are of particular interest:

• Social modulation of risk in animal and human systems
• Emergent dynamics in adaptive network models of social dynamics
• Cooperation and coalition formations
• Behavioral contagion and social norms on networks
• Collective decision making - role of interactions and informational correlations

Past Activities:

• Workshop on Social Modulation of Risk, Princeton, May 14th-15th, 2017.

• CoCCoN Modeling Tutorial, Potsdam, November 16th-17th

• CoCCoN Meeting “Social Modulation of Risk & Collective Cognition“, Berlin, November 16th - 19th, 2017

• Princeton Workshop on Collective Behaviour, Social Media and Systemic Risk, August 16th-18th, 2018.

• HU internal CoCCoN Meeting, December 10th-11th, 2018.

• CoCCoN Workshop in Princeton, January 28th - February 1st, 2019

• CoCCoN Workshop in Berlin, early July, 2019.

Upcoming activities: