Citizen Social Lab: A digital platform for human behavior experimentation within a citizen science framework

Area of Science:

• Behavioral economics
• Social psychology
• Citizen science

Background:

• Understanding human cooperation is crucial, but lab experiments have limitations in generalizability and reproducibility.
• Moving behavioral experiments to public spaces via citizen science offers a more naturalistic context.
• Ensuring data quality in public settings requires robust data collection protocols.

Purpose of the Study:

• Introduce Citizen Social Lab, a software platform for 'in-the-wild' behavioral experiments.
• Enable researchers to gather data in realistic contexts while maintaining scientific rigor.
• Facilitate public participation in scientific research and promote learning about the scientific process.

Main Methods:

• Citizen Social Lab is a modular and scalable software platform for citizen science.
• It supports data collection in public spaces, online, or traditional laboratory settings.
• Experiments utilize various games to study cooperation and other behavioral traits.

Main Results:

• The platform successfully collected data in diverse, real-world environments.
• Experiments demonstrated participant engagement and satisfaction.
• Technical evaluations confirmed the platform's robustness and data quality.

Conclusions:

• Citizen Social Lab effectively bridges the gap between controlled lab studies and real-world behavior.
• It enhances the scope and applicability of behavioral economics and social psychology research.
• The platform promotes scientific literacy and public involvement in research.