Susceptible individuals drive active social contagion

Autor: N. N. Chung, L. Y. Chew, W. Chen, R. M. D'Souza, C. H. Lai
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2019
Předmět:
Zdroj: Physical Review Research, Vol 1, Iss 3, p 033125 (2019)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2643-1564
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevResearch.1.033125
Popis: The catalyzing role that influential individuals play in driving large-scale social contagion has been the focus of many recent empirical and theoretical studies. Nevertheless, complementary studies suggest that the success of social contagion depends largely on having a group of highly susceptible individuals. Here we show that being influential is not due solely to having susceptible peers and that the relative importance of influential versus susceptible individuals depends on the underlying mechanism driving the contagion. Our mathematical models show that for passive social influence both influential and susceptible individuals catalyze the spread of the contagion progressively and equitably. In contrast, for active social influence, susceptible individuals facilitate rapid initial contagion, but then influential individuals are necessary for sustaining the growth of the contagion. We show that active influence characterizes certain online social networks, like retweeting behavior on Twitter, while passive influence characterizes other online social networks, like adoption of whom to follow on the Digg network.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals