I am an anthropologist studying how belief, practice, and identity interact with and shape interpersonal relationships. I look at how people work to discern something of the character, moral being, and intentions of their peers through their actions – particularly their religious action. And, I look at how people strive to communicate something of themselves to others, both in dramatic and in subtle ways. I want to know how such actions and reactions form the basis not only of people’s perceptions of one another, but also form the substance of their relationships and the emergent structure of their social world. When such bonds are crucial to our ability to navigate and get by in the world, this ultimately is an investigation into how people’s religious lives shape their social and economic lives as well.
I do this with a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, primary among which is social network analysis. My work is informed by signaling theory and the wider scholarship of human behavioral ecology. I am interested in the dynamics of social networks, especially relative to the factors that influence cooperation, competition, trust, and prestige. More generally, I am interested in investigating questions regarding: the role of religion in society, the interaction between costly signaling and cooperation, gender differences in prestige and social status, and the dynamics of punishment.
I am the co-director of the ENDOW project, a collaborative network of social scientists undertaking cross-cultural comparative work. Right now, our main focus is a project investigating the dynamics of social networks and wealth inequality in small communities around the world, funded by the US National Science Foundation.
I also lead the new Rep²SI project, funded by a Research Leadership Award from the Leverhulme Trust.
I am currently an associate professor in the Department of Methodology at the London School of Economics & Political Science. Prior to that, I was an Omidyar Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute (and am now a member of the external faculty). My PhD is from Stanford University, MSc from University College London, and BA from Brown University. See more at my departmental website.
2023. Cody T. Ross, Paul L. Hooper, Jennifer E. Smith, Adrian V. Jaeggi, Eric Alden Smith, Sergey Gavrilets, Fatema tuz Zohora, John Ziker, Dimitris Xygalatas, Emily E. Wroblewski, Brian Wood, Bruce Winterhalder, Kai P. Willführ, Aiyana K. Willard, Kara Walker, Christopher von Rueden, Eckart Voland, Claudia Valeggia, Bapu Vaitla, Samuel Urlacher, Mary Towner, Chun-Yi Sum, Lawrence S. Sugiyama, Karen B. Strier, Kathrine Starkweather, Daniel Major-Smith, Mary Shenk, Rebecca Sear, Ed Seabright, Ryan Schacht, Brooke Scelza, Shane Scaggs, Jonathan Salerno, Caissa Revilla-Minaya, Daniel Redhead, Anne Pusey, Benjamin Grant Purzycki, Eleanor A. Power, Anne Pisor, Jenni Pettay, Susan Perry, Abigail E. Page, Luis Pacheco-Cobos, Kathryn Oths, Seung-Yun Ohb, David Nolin, Daniel Nettle, Cristina Moya, Andrea Bamberg Migliano, Karl J. Mertens, Rita A. McNamara, Richard McElreath, Siobhan Mattison, Eric Massengill, Frank Marlowe, Felicia Madimenos, Shane Macfarlan, Virpi Lummaa, Roberto Lizarralde, Ruizhe Liu, Melissa A. Liebert, Sheina Lew-Levy, Paul Leslie, Joseph Lanning, Karen Kramer, Jeremy Koster, Hillard S. Kaplan, Bayarsaikhan Jamsranjav, A. Magdalena Hurtado, Kim Hill, Barry Hewlett, Samuli Helle, Thomas Headland, Janet Headland, Michael Gurven, Gianluca Grimalda, Russell Greaves, Christopher D. Golden, Irene Godoy, Mhairi Gibson, Claire El Mouden, Mark Dyble, Patricia Draper, Sean Downey, Angelina L. DeMarco, Helen Elizabeth Davis, Stefani Crabtree, Carmen Cortez, Heidi Colleran, Emma Cohen, Gregory Clark, Julia Clark, Mark A. Caudell, Chelsea E. Carminito, John Bunce, Adam Boyette, Samuel Bowles, Tami Blumenfield, Bret Beheim, Stephen Beckerman, Quentin Atkinson, Coren Apicella, Nurul Alam, and Monique Borgerhoff Mulder. Reproductive inequality in humans and other mammals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. 120 (22), e2220124120.
2023. Caterina De Bacco, Martina Contisciani, Jonathan Cardoso-Silva, Hadiseh Safdari, Diego Baptista, Tracy Sweet, Jean-Gabriel Young, Jeremy Koster, Cody T. Ross, Richard McElreath, Daniel Redhead, and Eleanor A. Power. Latent Network Models to Account for Noisy, Multiply-Reported Social Network Data. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A. qnac004.
2023. Cohen R. Simpson and Eleanor A. Power. Dynamics of Cooperative Networks Associated with Gender Among South Indian Tamils. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 378(1868), 20210437.
2022. Daniel J. Redhead and Eleanor A. Power. Social Hierarchies and Social Networks in Humans. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 377(1845), 20200440.
2021. Elspeth Ready and Eleanor A. Power. Measuring Reciprocity: Double Sampling, Concordance, and Network Construction. Network Science. 9(4):387-402.
2021. Francesca Giardini, Daniel Balliet, Eleanor A. Power, Szabolcs Számadó, and Károly Takács. Four Puzzles of Reputation-Based Cooperation: Content, Process, Honesty, and Structure. Human Nature. 33:43-61.
2021. Szabolcs Számadó, Daniel Balliet, Francesca Giardini, Eleanor A. Power, and Károly Takács. The Language of Cooperation: Reputation and Honest Signalling. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 376(1838):20200286. [introduction to the theme issue of the same name.]
2021. Marion Dumas, Jessica Barker, and Eleanor A. Power. When Does Reputation Lie? Dynamic Feedbacks Between Costly Signals, Social Capital, and Social Prominence. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 376(1838):20200298. Code.
2021. Károly Takács, Jörg A. J. Gross, Martina Testori, Srebrenka Letina, Adam R. Kenny, Eleanor A. Power, and Rafael P. M. Wittek. Networks of Reliable Reputation and Cooperation: A Review. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 376(1838):20200297.
2021. Nichola Raihani and Eleanor A. Power. No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The Social Costs of Prosocial Behaviour. Evolutionary Human Sciences. 3, E40.
2020. Martina Contisciani, Eleanor A. Power, Caterina De Bacco. Community Detection with Node Attributes in Multilayer Networks. Scientific Reports. 10:15736.
2020. John H. Shaver, Eleanor A. Power, Benjamin G. Purzycki, Joseph Watts, Rebecca Sear, Mary K. Shenk, Richard Sosis, and Joseph A. Bulbulia. Church Attendance and Alloparenting: An Analysis of Fertility, Social Support, and Child Development Among English Mothers. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 375(1805):20190428.
2019. Andrew Berdahl, Christa Brelsford, Caterina De Bacco, Marion Dumas, Vanessa Ferdinand, Joshua A. Grochow, Laurent Hébert-Dufresne, Yoav Kallus, Christopher P. Kempes, Artemy Kolchinsky, Daniel B. Larremore, Eric Libby, Eleanor A. Power, Caitlin A. Stern, Brendan Tracey. Dynamics of Beneficial Epidemics. Scientific Reports. 9(1):15093. (More about this paper and the “72 Hours of Science” process here and here).
2019. Jeremy Koster, Dieter Lukas, David Nolin, Eleanor A. Power, Alexandra Alvergne, Ruth Mace, Cody T. Ross, Karen Kramer, Russell Greaves, Mark Caudell, Shane MacFarlan, Eric Schniter, Robert Quinlan, Siobhan Mattison, Adam Reynolds, Chun Yi-Sum, and Eric Massengill. Kinship Ties Across the Lifespan in Human Communities. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 374(1780):20180069.
2019. Eleanor A. Power and Elspeth Ready. Cooperation Beyond Consanguinity: Post-Marital Residence, Delineations of Kin, and Social Support Among South Indian Tamils. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 374(1780):20180070. Code.
2019. Jessica Barker*, Eleanor A. Power*, Stephen Heap, Mikael Puurtinen and Richard Sosis. Content, Cost, and Context: A Framework for Understanding Human Signaling Systems. Evolutionary Anthropology. 28(2):86-99. (*: co-first authors)
2018. Eleanor A. Power and Elspeth Ready. Building Bigness: Reputation, Prominence, and Social Capital in Rural South India. American Anthropologist. 120(3):444-459. Code.
2018. Eleanor A. Power. Collective Ritual and Social Support Networks in Rural South India. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 285(1879):20180023. Code.
2018. Rebecca Bliege Bird, Elspeth Ready, and Eleanor A. Power. The Social Significance of Subtle Signals. Nature Human Behaviour. 2(7):452-457.
2018. Elspeth Ready and Eleanor A. Power. Why Wage-Earners Hunt. Food Sharing, Social Structure and Influence in an Arctic Mixed Ecology. Current Anthropology. 59(1):74-97.
2018. Eleanor A. Power. Invited Article Commentary: Praxis and Doxa: What a Focus on Ritual Can Offer Evolutionary Explanations of Religion. Religion, Brain and Behavior. 8(4):434-436.
2017. Caterina De Bacco, Eleanor A. Power, Daniel Larremore, and Cris Moore. Community Detection, Link Prediction and Layer Interdependency in Multilayer Networks. Physical Review E. 95(4):042317.
2017. Eleanor A. Power. Social Support Networks and Religiosity in Rural South India. Nature Human Behaviour. 1:0057. Code.
2017. Eleanor A. Power. Discerning Devotion: Testing the Signaling Theory of Religion. Evolution and Human Behavior. 38(1):82-91.
2017. Eleanor A. Power. The Roman-Byzantine Baths Adjacent to the Great Temple. Petra Great Temple Volume 3: Brown University Excavations 1993-2008, Architecture and Material Culture. Oxbow Press, Philadelphia, PA. 188-202.
2016. Eleanor A. Power. Invited Article Commentary: The Primacy of Social Support. Religion, Brain and Behavior. 7(3):255-258.
2015. Rebecca Bliege Bird and Eleanor A. Power. Prosocial Signaling and Cooperation Among Martu Hunters. Evolution and Human Behavior. 36(5):389-397.
2014. Douglas J. McCauley, Hillary S. Young, Roger Guevara, Gareth J. Williams, Eleanor A. Power, Robert B. Dunbar, Douglas W. Bird, William H. Durham, & Fiorenza Micheli. Positive and Negative Effects of a Threatened Parrotfish on Reef Ecosystems. Conservation Biology. 28(5):1312-1321.
2014. Douglas J. McCauley, Hillary S. Young, Eleanor A. Power, Douglas W. Bird, William H. Durham, Alex McInturff, Robert B. Dunbar, & Fiorenza Micheli. Pushing Back Against Paper-Park Pushers – Reply to Craigie et al. Biological Conservation. 172:223-224.
2013. Douglas J. McCauley, Eleanor A. Power, Douglas W. Bird, Alex McInturff, Robert B. Dunbar, William H. Durham, Fiorenza Micheli, & Hillary S. Young. Conservation at the Edges of the World. Biological Conservation. 165:139-145.
2005. Robert J. Losey and Eleanor A. Power. Shellfish Remains from the Par-Tee Site (35-CLT-20), Seaside, Oregon: Making Sense of a Biased Sample. Journal of Northwest Anthropology. 39(1):1-20.
2023 - 2027. ‘Reputational poverty traps’ and the reproduction of social inequality in South Asia and the world. Funded by a Leverhulme Research Leadership Award.
2022 - 2025. Economic Networks and the Dynamics of Wealth Inequality: A Longitudinal Cross-Cultural Investigation. (Part 1, Part 2). Funded by the US National Science Foundation Human Networks and Data Science program and the Cultural Anthropology program (with Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Samuel Bowles, Matthew Jackson, Daniel Murphy & Daniel Redhead)
2021 - 2022. Developing Latent Hierarchical Network Models for Cross-Cultural Comparisons of Social and Economic Inequality. Funded by the UKRI Economic and Social Research Council Research Methods Development Grant (with Caterina De Bacco & Daniel Redhead)
2017 - 2022. The Effect of Social Networks on Inequality: A Longitudinal Cross-Cultural Investigation. Funded by the US National Science Foundation Interdisciplinary Behavioral & Social Science Research Grant (with Jeremy Koster, Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Samuel Bowles, & Matthew Jackson)
Researchers interested in getting access to the data used in the papers listed below should email me!
Code to calculate affinal relatedness.
Code repository for When Does Reputation Lie?
Code repository for Cooperation Beyond Consanguinity
Code repository for Building Bigness
Code repository for Collective Ritual and Social Support Networks in Rural South India
Code repository for Social Support Networks and Religiosity in Rural South India
Code repository for MultiTensor
Code repository for MTCov
I have a number of datasets and research questions that may be of interest to potential postgraduate students. If you’re interested in working with me on one of the datasets or topics below, get in touch.
How does successful collaboration happen? Using data on the scientific publications of workshop attendees at the Lorentz Center (with Francesca Giardini).
How does social capital shape economic well-being? Using data on the daily expenditures, work, and wages for 100+ households over 20 months.
How does reputation change over time? Using data on reputational nominations separated by 4 years.
MY410. Fundamentals of Research Design for International Development
MY361/461/561. Social Network Analysis
Eleanor A. Power
Department of Methodology
Houghton Street
London, WC2A 2AE
e.a.power [at] lse.ac.uk
My Erdős number is 3. (I co-authored with Cris Moore, who co-authored with Leonard Schulman, who co-authored with Erdős.)