Olivia Brown
CREST Outputs
Articles
Academic Publications
Communication and coordination across event phases: A multi-team system emergency response
This paper explores how multi-agency response teams communicate and coordinate in different phases of a simulated terrorist incident. Procedural guidelines state that responders should coordinate their response to a major emergency across two phases: ‘response’ (when the incident is ongoing) and ‘recovery’ (when the threat has subsided, but the legacy of the incident is ongoing). However, no research has examined whether these phases map to the behaviours of responders in situ. To address this, we used measures of communication and coordination to examine how behaviours evolved during a simulated terrorist incident in the United Kingdom. We grounded our approach within the theoretical literature on multi-team systems. It was found that the current response/recovery classification does not fit the nuanced context of an emergency. Instead, a three-phase structure of ‘response/resolve/recovery’ is more reflective of behaviour. It was also found that coordination between agencies improved when communication networks became less centralized. This suggests that collaborative working in multi-team systems may be improved by adopting decentralized communication networks.
(From the journal abstract)
Brown, O., Power, N. and Conchie, S.M. (2021), Communication and coordination across event phases: A multi-team system emergency response. J Occup Organ Psychol.
https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.12349Immersive simulations with extreme teams
Extreme teams (ETs) work in challenging, high pressured contexts, where poor performance can have severe consequences. These teams must coordinate their skill sets, align their goals, and develop shared awareness, all under stressful conditions. How best to research these teams poses unique challenges as researchers seek to provide applied recommendations while conducting rigorous research to test how teamwork models work in practice. In this article, we identify immersive simulations as one solution to this, outlining their advantages over existing methodologies and suggesting how researchers can best make use of recent advances in technology and analytical techniques when designing simulation studies. We conclude that immersive simulations are key to ensuring ecological validity and empirically reliable research with ETs.
(From the journal abstract)
Brown, O., Power, N., & Conchie, S. M. (2020). Immersive simulations with extreme teams. Organizational Psychology Review, 10(3–4), 115–135.
https://doi.org/10.1177/2041386620926037The problem with the internet: An affordance-based approach for psychological research on networked technologies
The internet is often viewed as the source of a myriad of benefits and harms. However, there are problems with using this notion of “the internet” and other high-level concepts to explain the influence of communicating via everyday networked technologies on people and society. Here, we argue that research on social influence in computer-mediated communication (CMC) requires increased precision around how and why specific features of networked technologies interact with and impact psychological processes and outcomes. By reviewing research on the affordances of networked technologies, we demonstrate how the relationship between features of “the internet” and “online behaviour” can be determined by both the affordances of the environment and the psychology of the user and community. To achieve advances in this field, we argue that psychological science must provide nuanced and precise conceptualisations, operationalisations, and measurements of “internet use” and “online behaviour”. We provide a template for how future research can become more systematic by examining how and why variables associated with the individual user, networked technologies, and the online community interact and intersect. If adopted, psychological science will be able to make more meaningful predictions about online and offline outcomes associated with communicating via networked technologies.
Olivia Brown, Laura G.E. Smith, Brittany I. Davidson, David A. Ellis,(2022) The problem with the internet: An affordance-based approach for psychological research on networked technologies, Acta Psychologica, Volume 228.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103650Online risk signals of offline terrorist offending
There has been a rise in the number of terrorist incidents in which social media use has been implicated in the planning and execution of the attack. Efforts to identify online risk signals of terrorist offending is challenging due to the existence of the specificity problem– that while many people express ideologically and hateful views, very few go on to commit terrorist acts. Here, we demonstrate that risk signals of terrorist offending can be identified in a sample of 119,473 online posts authored by 26 convicted right-wing extremists and 48 right-wing extremists who did not have convictions. Combining qualitative analysis with computational modelling, we show that it is not ideological or hateful content that indicates the risk of an offence, but rather content about violent action, operational planning, and logistics. Our findings have important implications for theories of mobilization and radicalization.
(From the journal abstract)
Brown, O., Smith, L. G. E., Davidson, B. I., Racek, D., & Joinson, A. (2023) Online risk signals of offline terrorist offending. PsyArXiv https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/hej3r
https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/hej3rHow the Content and Function of Online Interactions Relate to Endorsement of Conversative and Progressive Collective Actions
The purpose of this pre-registered study was to investigate how different ideological groups justified and mobilised collective action online. We collected 6878 posts from the social media accounts of pro-Black Lives Matter (n = 13) and anti-Black Lives Matter (n = 9) groups who promoted collective action in the month after George Floyd's murder and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and counter-protests. We used content analysis and natural language processing (NLP) to analyse the content and psychological function of the posts. We found that both groups perceived their action as ‘system-challenging’, with pro-BLM accounts focused more on outgroup actions to mobilise collective action, and anti-BLM accounts focused more on ingroup identity. The reverse pattern occurred when the accounts were attempting to justify action. The implications are that groups’ ideology and socio-structural position should be accounted for when understanding differences in how and why groups mobilise through online interactions.
(From the journal abstract)
Brown, O., Lowery, C. & Smith, L. G. E. (2022) How opposing ideological groups use online interactions to justify and mobilise collective action, The European Journal of Social Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2886
https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2886Integrating Insights About Human Movement Patterns from Digital Data into Psychological Sciences
Understanding people’s movement patterns has many important applications, from analyzing habits and social behaviors, to predicting the spread of disease. Information regarding these movements and their locations is now deeply embedded in digital data generated via smartphones, wearable sensors, and social-media interactions. Research has largely used data-driven modeling to detect patterns in people’s movements, but such approaches are often devoid of psychological theory and fail to capitalize on what movement data can convey about associated thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and behavior. This article outlines trends in current research in this area and discusses how psychologists can better address theoretical and methodological challenges in future work while capitalizing on the opportunities that digital movement data present. We argue that combining approaches from psychology and data science will improve researchers’ and policy makers’ abilities to make predictions about individuals’ or groups’ movement patterns. At the same time, an interdisciplinary research agenda will provide greater capacity to advance psychological theory.
(From the journal abstract)
Hinds, J., Brown, O., Smith, L. G. E., Piwek, L., Ellis, D. A., & Joinson, A. N. (2022). Integrating Insights About Human Movement Patterns From Digital Data Into Psychological Science. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 31(1), 88-95. https://doi.org/10.1177/09637214211042324
https://doi.org/10.1177/09637214211042324Integrating Insights About Human Movement Patterns From Digital Data Into Psychological Science
Understanding people’s movement patterns has many important applications, from analyzing habits and social behaviors, to predicting the spread of disease. Information regarding these movements and their locations is now deeply embedded in digital data generated via smartphones, wearable sensors, and social-media interactions. Research has largely used data-driven modeling to detect patterns in people’s movements, but such approaches are often devoid of psychological theory and fail to capitalize on what movement data can convey about associated thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and behavior. This article outlines trends in current research in this area and discusses how psychologists can better address theoretical and methodological challenges in future work while capitalizing on the opportunities that digital movement data present. We argue that combining approaches from psychology and data science will improve researchers’ and policy makers’ abilities to make predictions about individuals’ or groups’ movement patterns. At the same time, an interdisciplinary research agenda will provide greater capacity to advance psychological theory.
(From the journal abstract)
Hinds, J., Brown, O., Smith, L. G. E., Piwek, L., Ellis, D. A., & Joinson, A. N. (2022). Integrating Insights About Human Movement Patterns From Digital Data Into Psychological Science. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 31(1), 88-95. https://doi.org/10.1177/09637214211042324
https://doi.org/10.1177/09637214211042324
Articles
Academic Publications
Communication and coordination across event phases: A multi-team system emergency response
This paper explores how multi-agency response teams communicate and coordinate in different phases of a simulated terrorist incident. Procedural guidelines state that responders should coordinate their response to a major emergency across two phases: ‘response’ (when the incident is ongoing) and ‘recovery’ (when the threat has subsided, but the legacy of the incident is ongoing). However, no research has examined whether these phases map to the behaviours of responders in situ. To address this, we used measures of communication and coordination to examine how behaviours evolved during a simulated terrorist incident in the United Kingdom. We grounded our approach within the theoretical literature on multi-team systems. It was found that the current response/recovery classification does not fit the nuanced context of an emergency. Instead, a three-phase structure of ‘response/resolve/recovery’ is more reflective of behaviour. It was also found that coordination between agencies improved when communication networks became less centralized. This suggests that collaborative working in multi-team systems may be improved by adopting decentralized communication networks.
(From the journal abstract)
Brown, O., Power, N. and Conchie, S.M. (2021), Communication and coordination across event phases: A multi-team system emergency response. J Occup Organ Psychol.
Immersive simulations with extreme teams
Extreme teams (ETs) work in challenging, high pressured contexts, where poor performance can have severe consequences. These teams must coordinate their skill sets, align their goals, and develop shared awareness, all under stressful conditions. How best to research these teams poses unique challenges as researchers seek to provide applied recommendations while conducting rigorous research to test how teamwork models work in practice. In this article, we identify immersive simulations as one solution to this, outlining their advantages over existing methodologies and suggesting how researchers can best make use of recent advances in technology and analytical techniques when designing simulation studies. We conclude that immersive simulations are key to ensuring ecological validity and empirically reliable research with ETs.
(From the journal abstract)
Brown, O., Power, N., & Conchie, S. M. (2020). Immersive simulations with extreme teams. Organizational Psychology Review, 10(3–4), 115–135.
The problem with the internet: An affordance-based approach for psychological research on networked technologies
The internet is often viewed as the source of a myriad of benefits and harms. However, there are problems with using this notion of “the internet” and other high-level concepts to explain the influence of communicating via everyday networked technologies on people and society. Here, we argue that research on social influence in computer-mediated communication (CMC) requires increased precision around how and why specific features of networked technologies interact with and impact psychological processes and outcomes. By reviewing research on the affordances of networked technologies, we demonstrate how the relationship between features of “the internet” and “online behaviour” can be determined by both the affordances of the environment and the psychology of the user and community. To achieve advances in this field, we argue that psychological science must provide nuanced and precise conceptualisations, operationalisations, and measurements of “internet use” and “online behaviour”. We provide a template for how future research can become more systematic by examining how and why variables associated with the individual user, networked technologies, and the online community interact and intersect. If adopted, psychological science will be able to make more meaningful predictions about online and offline outcomes associated with communicating via networked technologies.
Olivia Brown, Laura G.E. Smith, Brittany I. Davidson, David A. Ellis,(2022) The problem with the internet: An affordance-based approach for psychological research on networked technologies, Acta Psychologica, Volume 228.
Online risk signals of offline terrorist offending
There has been a rise in the number of terrorist incidents in which social media use has been implicated in the planning and execution of the attack. Efforts to identify online risk signals of terrorist offending is challenging due to the existence of the specificity problem– that while many people express ideologically and hateful views, very few go on to commit terrorist acts. Here, we demonstrate that risk signals of terrorist offending can be identified in a sample of 119,473 online posts authored by 26 convicted right-wing extremists and 48 right-wing extremists who did not have convictions. Combining qualitative analysis with computational modelling, we show that it is not ideological or hateful content that indicates the risk of an offence, but rather content about violent action, operational planning, and logistics. Our findings have important implications for theories of mobilization and radicalization.
(From the journal abstract)
Brown, O., Smith, L. G. E., Davidson, B. I., Racek, D., & Joinson, A. (2023) Online risk signals of offline terrorist offending. PsyArXiv https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/hej3r
How the Content and Function of Online Interactions Relate to Endorsement of Conversative and Progressive Collective Actions
The purpose of this pre-registered study was to investigate how different ideological groups justified and mobilised collective action online. We collected 6878 posts from the social media accounts of pro-Black Lives Matter (n = 13) and anti-Black Lives Matter (n = 9) groups who promoted collective action in the month after George Floyd's murder and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and counter-protests. We used content analysis and natural language processing (NLP) to analyse the content and psychological function of the posts. We found that both groups perceived their action as ‘system-challenging’, with pro-BLM accounts focused more on outgroup actions to mobilise collective action, and anti-BLM accounts focused more on ingroup identity. The reverse pattern occurred when the accounts were attempting to justify action. The implications are that groups’ ideology and socio-structural position should be accounted for when understanding differences in how and why groups mobilise through online interactions.
(From the journal abstract)
Brown, O., Lowery, C. & Smith, L. G. E. (2022) How opposing ideological groups use online interactions to justify and mobilise collective action, The European Journal of Social Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2886
Integrating Insights About Human Movement Patterns from Digital Data into Psychological Sciences
Understanding people’s movement patterns has many important applications, from analyzing habits and social behaviors, to predicting the spread of disease. Information regarding these movements and their locations is now deeply embedded in digital data generated via smartphones, wearable sensors, and social-media interactions. Research has largely used data-driven modeling to detect patterns in people’s movements, but such approaches are often devoid of psychological theory and fail to capitalize on what movement data can convey about associated thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and behavior. This article outlines trends in current research in this area and discusses how psychologists can better address theoretical and methodological challenges in future work while capitalizing on the opportunities that digital movement data present. We argue that combining approaches from psychology and data science will improve researchers’ and policy makers’ abilities to make predictions about individuals’ or groups’ movement patterns. At the same time, an interdisciplinary research agenda will provide greater capacity to advance psychological theory.
(From the journal abstract)
Hinds, J., Brown, O., Smith, L. G. E., Piwek, L., Ellis, D. A., & Joinson, A. N. (2022). Integrating Insights About Human Movement Patterns From Digital Data Into Psychological Science. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 31(1), 88-95. https://doi.org/10.1177/09637214211042324
Integrating Insights About Human Movement Patterns From Digital Data Into Psychological Science
Understanding people’s movement patterns has many important applications, from analyzing habits and social behaviors, to predicting the spread of disease. Information regarding these movements and their locations is now deeply embedded in digital data generated via smartphones, wearable sensors, and social-media interactions. Research has largely used data-driven modeling to detect patterns in people’s movements, but such approaches are often devoid of psychological theory and fail to capitalize on what movement data can convey about associated thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and behavior. This article outlines trends in current research in this area and discusses how psychologists can better address theoretical and methodological challenges in future work while capitalizing on the opportunities that digital movement data present. We argue that combining approaches from psychology and data science will improve researchers’ and policy makers’ abilities to make predictions about individuals’ or groups’ movement patterns. At the same time, an interdisciplinary research agenda will provide greater capacity to advance psychological theory.
(From the journal abstract)
Hinds, J., Brown, O., Smith, L. G. E., Piwek, L., Ellis, D. A., & Joinson, A. N. (2022). Integrating Insights About Human Movement Patterns From Digital Data Into Psychological Science. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 31(1), 88-95. https://doi.org/10.1177/09637214211042324