Yuan Hsiao

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Assistant Professor at Yale University

Under what conditions do violent tactics receive public support? Focusing on the process of social influence, this article utilizes a survey on the 2019 Hong Kong Anti-Extradition Bill Movement to test how social interactions with people with different orientations toward the movement (opposing, neutral, supportive) relate to individuals’ tolerance...

The great upsurge of witch trials in early modern Europe remains a historical puzzle. Popularly known as the “witch craze”, this eruption of persecution is puzzling because belief in witchcraft had existed for centuries, but large-scale witch-hunting appeared rather abruptly, spread widely, and was remarkably brutal in comparison with the past. We...

Does people's greater intention to migrate deter them from participating in protests? How does protest participation shape intention to migrate? How does the relationship between migration intention and protest change amidst Hong Kong's transition to authoritarianism? Drawing upon Hirschman's exit-voice theory, this study examines the relationship...

Social media is increasingly intertwined into people’s lives, spurring questions about the relationships between online behavior and offline actions. We advance knowledge in conflict dynamics by using a multiplex network framework that conceptualizes online and offline gang relationships as co-constitutive networks—online and offline relationships...

In this paper, we develop the rationality of oath giving and the socially functional role that oaths can play in securing the commitment of members of conflict groups. Oaths are a reoccurring feature of insurgencies, armed struggles, and revolutionary movements. Oaths grow out of a general set of cultural practices that leverage superstitious belie...

Background Vaccine equity has been a major concern during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the principle of vaccine equity, donor countries should apply the criterion of needs to make decisions about vaccine donation instead of considering recipient countries’ economic status. We examine whether people follow the same criterion or consider other...

Many right-wing media such as Breitbart produce propaganda. However, how their audiences participate in propaganda remains unknown. We advance the theory of “participatory propaganda” via investigating “super commenters” -- the top 5% of the most active commenters who produced more than 50% of the comments on Breitbart. Based on a textual analysis...

The spread of radical institutional change does not often result from one-sided pro-innovation influence; countervailing influence networks in support of the status quo can suppress adoption. We develop a model of multiple and competing network diffusion. To apply the contested-diffusion model to real data, we look at the contest between Martin Lut...

Obtaining reliable and timely estimates of migration flows is critical for advancing the migration theory and guiding policy decisions, but it remains a challenge. Digital data provide granular information on time and space, but do not draw from representative samples of the population, leading to biased estimates. We propose a method for combining...

Growing interest in the diffusion of radicalism reflects concern with political discontent and widening social inequality. It also reflects the profoundly different forms of communication emerging from the new digital media environment that are recasting radical politics. Sociology has important and longstanding insights into the incubation of radi...

Can decentralized, digitally-enabled movements sustain solidarity over time? What is the role of digital media in such a process? Existing studies point to the tendency of such movements towards fragmentation. We focus on the case the 2019 Anti-ELAB Movement in Hong Kong and one of the primary digital platforms for mobilization, LIHKG. We argue tha...

Research indicates that network structure affects the diffusion of a single behavior. However, in many social settings, two or more behaviors may compete for adoption, as in the case of religious competition, social movements and counter-movements, or conflicting rumors. Lessons from one-behavior diffusion cannot be easily applied because the outco...

The migration literature has examined migrants' political motivations separately from their family's mobility strategies in the face of macro‐political uncertainties. Bridging the two bodies of literature, this study analyses how parental status moderates the relationship between individual political considerations and migration intentions in an in...

The Syrian crisis has had a devastating impact on displaced populations and among host communities in neighboring countries such as Jordan. Many of these individuals are at risk for non-communicable diseases (NCD) and mental health disorders, yet do not have access to services designed to manage or prevent these conditions. The purpose of this stud...

Objectives This study examined the mediating or moderating relationship of social health on physical health and post-traumatic stress symptoms among displaced Syrians and Jordanians at high risk for physical and mental health ailments. Frequency of mental health symptoms stratified by demographic factors was also explored. We hypothesized social he...

This article analyzes Martin Luther’s role in spreading the early Reformation, one of the most important episodes of radical institutional change in the last millennium. We argue that social relations played a key role in its diffusion because the spread of heterodox ideologies and their eventual institutionalization relied not only on private “inf...

Objectives This study examines gang group processes on the digital street to understand if gang processes in the online environment mimic those on geographic street corners. Specifically, this paper examines what conditions influence whether gangs interact negatively or positively in online spaces and how online interactions relate to geographic pr...

In recent years, scholars have argued that protests that employ nonviolent tactics attract greater support and are therefore more likely to succeed than those that use violence. We argue that how protest tactics are perceived is not a purely objective determination, but can be influenced in part by observer characteristics – in particular, by parti...

Do online networks encourage political participation? Much research has theorized on how digital networks transmit mobilizing content, fewer studies examine the structure of online networks, and even fewer test how the structure of online networks affects participation for political behaviors with differing costs. From a structural network perspect...

Some 17.6 million EU citizens are currently living and working abroad, and 4% of the EU population of working age lives in another EU country. Having up-to-date information about the nature and extent of such mobility is important for policy making. However, timely and reliable statistics on the number of EU citizens residing in or moving across ot...

Network selection and influence on aggressive and prosocial behavior have been of great concern, but current research is limited by predominant studies in European-American societies and insufficient consideration on gender networks. Using panel data from 702 seventh grade students in a Chinese society, we show that while results are in general con...

Background: In 2015, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Nepal, causing unprecedented damage and loss in the mountain and hill regions of central Nepal. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between healthcare access and utilization, and post-disaster mental health symptoms. Methods: A cross-sectional study conducted with 750 disas...

The under-five mortality rate (U5MR) is a critical and widely available population health indicator. Both the MDGs and SDGs define targets for improvement in the U5MR, and the SDGs require spatial disaggregation of indicators. We estimate trends in the U5MR for Admin-1 subnational areas using 122 DHS surveys in 35 countries in Africa and assess pro...

Many have observed that a new political generation of digital natives has heavily used social media as means of facilitating street protests. Nevertheless, the mechanisms by which social media affects protest participation are not completely understood due to the shortage of psychological explanations. This study employs a uniquely designed survey...

Social media participants in digitally enabled protests have long been criticized for their lack of commitment. Many bypassed this issue and argued that social media’s positive impact on protests does not require high commitment. We empirically test the lack of commitment claim in the case of the 2014 Sunflower Movement in Taiwan. Using survey data...