Research
My research centers on the ways that communication informs and reinforces hierarchy and authority in varied social settings. I specialize in statistical modeling and computational methodologies, with particular focus on network analysis and emerging methods for social inference on large, unstructured data sets.
Currently, I am working on several projects relating to communication in academic contexts. One line of research examines the role of academic publications in the structuring of scholarly fields. This work finds that particular modes of publication (e.g. review articles or formal critiques) have far-reaching effects on the form and focus of future research. A separate research agenda is concerned with the effects of ambiguous academic language on intellectual discourse, arguing that imprecision in communication can have a cohering effect on a community of scholars and lead to more engaged and fruitful scientific outcomes.
Another strand of my current research seeks to uncover implicit authority structures whithin small communities and to trace the consequences of such structures on the formation of cultural frames. This work uses traditional network measures like friendship nominations as well as features of natural language in both online and face-to-face contexts.
Selected
publications
- McMahan, Peter. 2024. “Ambiguous status relations and complex hierarchy among adolescents.” Socius 10. (PDF )
- McMahan, Peter, and Eran Shor. 2024. “Status Ambiguity and Multiplicity in the Selection of NBA Awards.” Sociological Science 11 (August):680–706. (PDF )
- McMahan, Peter, and Daniel A. McFarland. “Creative Destruction: The Structural Consequences of Scientific Curation.” American Sociological Review 86, no. 2 (2021): 341–76. (PDF )
- McMahan, Peter, Adam Slez, and John Levi Martin. 2019. “Local Network Regressions.” Socius 5. (PDF )
- McMahan, Peter, and James Evans. 2018. “Ambiguity and Engagement.” American Journal of Sociology 124, no. 3: 860–912. (PDF )
Teaching
Sociological Perspectives (SOCI 210): Undergraduate introduction to sociological analysis.
Sociology of Science (SOCI 325): Introduction to science and technology studies (STS) from a sociological perspective.
Networks and Social Structures (SOCI 424/624): Seminar in methods and theories of network analysis and relational sociology.
Quantitative Methods 2 (SOCI 620): A graduate-level course in multilevel and generalized linear models models from a Bayesian perspective.
Office hours
Fall semester, 2024: Tuesdays, 10h30–11h45 (Leacock 727)
Talks
Conference and workshop slides are available from my github repo.