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Complex contagion is the phenomenon in social networks in which multiple sources of exposure to an innovation are required before an individual adopts the change of behavior.[1] It differs from simple contagion in that unlike a disease, it may not be possible for the innovation to spread after only one incident of contact with an infected neighbor. The spread of complex contagion across a network of people may depend on many social and economic factors; for instance, how many of one's friends adopt the new idea as well as how many of them cannot influence the individual, as well as their own disposition in embracing change.
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Complex Contagion and the Weakness of Long Ties by Damon Centola of University of Pennsylvania and Michael Macy of Cornell University found that information and disease spread as “simple contagions”, requiring only one contact for transmission, while behaviors typically spread as “complex contagions”, requiring multiples sources of reinforcement to induce adoption. Centola’s work builds on Granovetter’s work on the strength of weak ties and threshold models of collective behavior, as well as Duncan Watts and Steve Strogatz’s work on small world networks.[2] Centola and Macy show that the weak ties and small worlds networks are both very good for spreading simple contagions. However, for complex contagions, weak ties and small worlds can slow diffusion.
Centola and Macy suggest four mechanisms of complex contagion. These properties explain the need for multiple exposures in the spread of contagion:
Consider a graph of any reasonable size. Node v’s neighbors can be split into two sets: Set A contains v's neighbors who have adopted a new behavior and B is the set of those behaving conservatively. Node v will only adopt the behavior of those in A if at least a q fraction of neighbors follow behavior A.[3]
Many interactions happen at a local, rather than a global, level – we often don't care as much about the full population's decisions as about the decisions made by friends and colleagues. For example, in a work setting we may choose technology to be compatible with the people we directly collaborate with, rather than the universally most popular technology. Similarly, we may adopt political views that are aligned with those of our friends, even if they belong to minorities.[3]
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