Skip to main content

Yunkyu Sohn

Seoul National University · Social Sciences

About the Lab

Professor Yunkyu Sohn's research lab specializes in the intersection of social networks, emotion dynamics, and behavioral decision-making. The lab investigates how emotions and social interactions propagate through online and biological networks, using advanced network science and statistical modeling to uncover hidden structures and mechanisms. Key research directions include emotional contagion in digital environments, the role of emotion regulation in shaping political ideologies, and the self-organization of cooperative networks through strategic interaction. The lab also develops innovative computational frameworks, such as multilayer stochastic blockmodels, to analyze complex, multi-layered social and neural systems.

emotional contagionsocial networksemotion regulationnetwork sciencemultilayer networks

Research Overview

Papers
21
Total Citations
632
Papers (5y)
11
Primary Field
Social Sciences

Research Output Trend

Figures are computed from collected data and may differ slightly.

Publications per year (5y)
11total
2017
2019
2021
2023
2024
Citations per year (5y)
27total
20172019202120232024

Selected Papers

15
1
Article|473 citations·2014
Detecting Emotional Contagion in Massive Social Networks
Lorenzo Coviello, Yunkyu Sohn, Adam Kramer, Cameron Marlow, Massimo Franceschetti, Nicholas A. Christakis, James H. Fowler
SJR Q1PLoS ONEOA

Happiness and other emotions spread between people in direct contact, but it is unclear whether massive online social networks also contribute to this spread. Here, we elaborate a novel method for measuring the contagion of emotional expression. With data from millions of Facebook users, we show that rainfall directly influences the emotional content of their status messages, and it also affects the status messages of friends in other cities who are not experiencing rainfall. For every one perso

Statistical and Nonlinear PhysicsPhysics and Astronomy
2
Article|80 citations·2011
Topological Cluster Analysis Reveals the Systemic Organization of the Caenorhabditis elegans Connectome
Yunkyu Sohn, Myung-kyu Choi, Yong‐Yeol Ahn, Junho Lee, Jaeseung Jeong
SJR Q1PLoS Computational BiologyOA

The modular organization of networks of individual neurons interwoven through synapses has not been fully explored due to the incredible complexity of the connectivity architecture. Here we use the modularity-based community detection method for directed, weighted networks to examine hierarchically organized modules in the complete wiring diagram (connectome) of Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) and to investigate their topological properties. Incorporating bilateral symmetry of the network as

AgingBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
3
Article|47 citations·2013
Emotion Regulation as the Foundation of Political Attitudes: Does Reappraisal Decrease Support for Conservative Policies?
Julia Lee, Yunkyu Sohn, James H. Fowler
SJR Q1PLoS ONEOA

Cognitive scientists, behavior geneticists, and political scientists have identified several ways in which emotions influence political attitudes, and psychologists have shown that emotion regulation can have an important causal effect on physiology, cognition, and subjective experience. However, no work to date explores the possibility that emotion regulation may shape political ideology and attitudes toward policies. Here, we conduct four studies that investigate the role of a particular emoti

Cognitive NeuroscienceNeuroscience
4
Article|9 citations·2019
Core–periphery segregation in evolving prisoner’s dilemma networks
Yunkyu Sohn, Jung-Kyoo Choi, T. K. Ahn
SJR Q2Journal of Complex NetworksOA

Abstract Dense cooperative networks are an essential element of social capital for prosperous societies. These networks enable individuals to overcome collective action dilemmas by enhancing trust. In many biological and social settings, network structures evolve endogenously as agents exit relationships and build new ones. However, the interplay between game strategy and interaction structure by which evolutionary dynamics leads to self-organization of dense cooperative networks has not been un

Sociology and Political ScienceSocial Sciences
5
Article|7 citations·2017
Bayesian approach to multilayer stochastic blockmodel and network changepoint detection
Yunkyu Sohn, Jong Hee Park
SJR Q2Network Science

Abstract Network scholars commonly encounter multiple networks, each of which is possibly governed by distinct generation rules while sharing a node group structure. Although the stochastic blockmodeling—detecting such latent group structures with group-specific connection profiles—has been a major topic of recent research, the focus has been given to the assortative group discovery of a single network. Despite its universality, concepts, and techniques for simultaneous characterization of node

Statistical and Nonlinear PhysicsPhysics and Astronomy
6
Article|6 citations·2021
Power of Earned Advertising on Social Network Services: A Case Study of Friend Tagging on Facebook
Jaimie Y. Park, Yunkyu Sohn, Sue Moon
Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social MediaOA

Social network services (SNSs) are now the primary advertisingmedium in terms of both reach and engagement.For both businesses and the SNS providers, it iscrucial to find advertising methods that users perceiveto be valuable. In this paper, we provide an empiricalevidence for the role of different advertising methodson SNSs (i.e. earned vs. paid) on the subjective evaluationof the relative worth of advertising. In particular,we concentrate on the act of ‘friend tagging’ – the conventionof taggin

Sociology and Political ScienceSocial Sciences
7
Preprint|2 citations·2019
Detecting Structural Changes in Longitudinal Network Data
Jong Hee Park, Yunkyu Sohn
SJR Q1Bayesian AnalysisOA

Dynamic modeling of longitudinal networks has been an increasingly important topic in applied research. While longitudinal network data commonly exhibit dramatic changes in its structures, existing methods have largely focused on modeling smooth topological changes over time. In this paper, we develop a hidden Markov network change-point model (HNC) that combines the multilinear tensor regression model (Hoff, 2011) with a hidden Markov model using Bayesian inference. We model changes in network

Statistical and Nonlinear PhysicsPhysics and Astronomy
8
Preprint|2 citations·2011
Core-Periphery Segregation in Evolving Prisoner's Dilemma Networks
Yunkyu Sohn, Jung-Kyoo Choi, T. K. Ahn
arXiv (Cornell University)OA

Dense cooperative networks are an essential element of social capital for a prosperous society. These networks enable individuals to overcome collective action dilemmas by enhancing trust. In many biological and social settings, network structures evolve endogenously as agents exit relationships and build new ones. However, the process by which evolutionary dynamics lead to self-organization of dense cooperative networks has not been explored. Our large group prisoner's dilemma experiments with

Sociology and Political ScienceSocial Sciences
9
Article|2 citations·2024
알고리즘 공정성의 실제와 사회과학의 역할
손윤규

인공지능 기술의 급격한 발전에 따라 알고리즘의 사회 적용이 일반화되면서, 규범적 가치, 특히 공정성 기준을 어떻게 자동화된 의사결정 구조에 반영할지가 인공지능 거버넌스의 중요한 의제로 부상하고 있다. 이 논문의 일차적 목표는 알고리즘 공정성에 대한 피상적인 논의에서 벗어나, 해당 주제의주요 개념과 근본 문제를 소개하고, 기초적인 통계 지식으로 이해 가능한 사례를 제시하는 것이다. 알고리즘 사회 적용 파이프라인의 구조, 공정성 개념의 종류와 이들의 관계, 규범적 기준을 자동화된 의사결정에 반영하는 방법을 다루고, 이를 통해 시대적 요구에 발맞춘 진전된 논의를 도모한다. 나아가, 사회과학이 개척해야 할 연구 영역과 발전 방향은 무엇이 될 수 있는지 알아보고, 앞으로의 사회과학은 기존의 회고적 학문에서 실천적 학문으로 나아가야 함을 주장한다.

10
Article|2 citations·2016
Structuralizing the Fluxus Way of Life: The Social Network of Fluxus
Rooni Lee, Yunkyu Sohn, Won-Jae Lee
SJR Q1Leonardo

Abstract Fluxus is often understood as an avant-garde art movement led by George Maciunas in the 1960s. Such a narrative, however, is limiting as it overlooks the contribution of other prominent Fluxus artists. This article aims to challenge what is referred to as the Maciunas-based paradigm in its temporal scope and ideological homogeneity through the adoption of social network analysis.

Urban StudiesSocial Sciences
11
Article|1 citations·2017
Measuring Ideology, Dimensionality and Polarization in Politics
Yunkyu Sohn
eScholarship (California Digital Library)OA

This dissertation introduces a set of new statistical methods for measuring foundational constructs in political science: ideology, dimensionality and polarization. Using the proposed methods, I offer novel findings on multidimensional ideological characteristics of American Congress. The final chapter provides the first complete description of ideological coalitions in Korean National Assembly from its birth to the present by introducing a new structural model of ideal point estimation for non-

Political Science and International RelationsSocial Sciences
12
Article|1 citations·2014
Strategic foundation of computational social science
Yunkyu Sohn

For decades, scholars of various disciplines have been fretted over strategic interactions, presenting theoretical insights and empirical observations. Despite the central role played by strategic interactions in creating values in the Internet environment, our ability to understand them scientifically and to manage them in practice has remained limited. While engineering communities suffer from not having enough theoretical resource to formalize such phenomena, economics and social sciences lac

Sociology and Political ScienceSocial Sciences
13
Article|0 citations·2007
Inferring Behavioral-level Circuits of Caenorhabditis elegans from the Topology of its Wiring Diagram
Yunkyu Sohn, Jaeseung Jeong

The existence of anatomical basis of functional modularity in the brain has been postulated. Previous studies in the field of theoretical neuroanatomy claimed the segregated nature of cortical areas with their physiological functions by analyzing fiber connection data of mammalian brains. The aim of this study was to investigate, using modularity-based spectral community (cluster) detection algorithm, whether the behavioral-level circuits of Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), which is the only

AgingBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
14
Article|0 citations·2023
Implications of Ecological Models on Social Network Dynamics : Structural Characteristics and Stability
Yunkyu Sohn
The Korean Journal of Humanities and the Social Sciences

사회 네트워크 분석은 사회현상을 설명하는 데에 상호작용 구조의 특성을 중심에 둔다. 이는 사회과학자들이 관심 있어 하는 대부분의 개념, 사회경제적 지위와 심리적 상태 등이 행위자들 간의 경쟁, 협력 혹은 착취의 결과로서 존재하기 때문이다. 하지만 실세계 상호작용의 다양한 양상에도 불구하고, 그래프 이론에 기반한 대부분의 구조적 분석은 암묵적으로 매우 간단한 형태의 네트워크에서의 단순한 동역학적 가정을 기반으로 정당화되어왔다. 이 논문에서는 방향성, 가중치, 부호, 자기연결이 모두 존재하는 상호작용 일반에 대한 사회 네트워크 동역학 모형으로서 이론 생태학의 로트카-볼테라(Lotka-Volterra) 모형이 쓰일 수 있음을 제시한다. 그리고 이 모형을 이용해서 얻은 상호작용의 구조적 특성과 계의 안정성과의 보편적 관계에 대한 최신 분석 결과를 중심으로 사회 네트워크 연구에서의 의미와 활용 가능성을 논한다.

Statistical and Nonlinear PhysicsPhysics and Astronomy
15
Article|0 citations·2024
The Practices of Algorithmic Fairness and the Role of Social Sciences
Yunkyu Sohn
Korean Journal of Sociology

인공지능 기술의 급격한 발전에 따라 알고리즘의 사회 적용이 일반화되면서, 규범적 가치, 특히 공정성 기준을 어떻게 자동화된 의사결정 구조에 반영할지가 인공지능 거버넌스의 중요한 의제로 부상하고 있다. 이 논문의 일차적 목표는 알고리즘 공정성에 대한 피상적인 논의에서 벗어나, 해당 주제의 주요 개념과 근본 문제를 소개하고, 기초적인 통계 지식으로 이해 가능한 사례를 제시하는 것이다. 알고리즘 사회 적용 파이프라인의 구조, 공정성 개념의 종류와 이들의 관계, 규범적 기준을 자동화된 의사결정에 반영하는 방법을 다루고, 이를 통해 시대적 요구에 발맞춘 진전된 논의를 도모한다. 나아가, 사회과학이 개척해야 할 연구 영역과 발전 방향은 무엇이 될 수 있는지 알아보고, 앞으로의 사회과학은 기존의 회고적 학문에서 실천적 학문으로 나아가야 함을 주장한다.

Safety ResearchSocial Sciences

Research Areas

Sociology and Political ScienceStatistical and Nonlinear PhysicsAgingCognitive NeuroscienceUrban StudiesPolitical Science and International Relations

Dive deeper into Yunkyu Sohn's research on Nubint

Open this lab's papers in the app to read with AI, summarize, and cite in your writing.