Key topics

• Modeling collective behavior and information flow.
• Dynamics of polarization, misinformation, and trust.
• Computational methods for cultural and social data.

Example Projects

• Large-scale analyses of online political discourse.
• Modeling cultural dynamics under AI–human interaction.
• Computational approaches to social complexity in urban environments.
• Predictive models of collective attention and public opinion.

Selected Publications

• Bentley, R. A., Horne, B. D. (2025). Perceptible climate warming amplifies how education increases climate concern in the US. npj Climate Action, 4(1), 12.
• Bentley, R. A. (2022). The Acceleration of Cultural Change: From Ancestors to Algorithms. MIT Press.
• Hidalgo, C. A., Klinger, B., Barabási, A.-L., Hausmann, R. (2007). The product space conditions the development of nations. Science, 317(5837), 482–487.
• Ruck, D. J., Matthews, L. J., Kyritsis, T., Atkinson, Q. D., Bentley, R. A. (2020). The cultural foundations of modern democracies. Nature Human Behaviour, 4(3), 265–269.
• Duran-Nebreda, S., O’Brien, M. J., Bentley, R. A., Valverde, S. (2022). Dilution of expertise in the rise and fall of collective innovation. Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, 9, 365.

Research Themes