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Scaling of prosocial behavior in cities

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  • Arbesman, Samuel
  • Christakis, Nicholas A.

Abstract

Previous research has examined how various behaviors scale in cities in relation to their population sizes. Behavior related to innovation and productivity has been found to increase per capita as the size of the city increases, a phenomenon known as superlinear scaling. Criminal behavior has also been found to scale superlinearly. Here we examine a variety of prosocial behaviors (e.g., voting and organ donation), which also would be presumed to be categorized into a single class of scaling with population. We find that, unlike productivity and innovation, prosocial behaviors do not scale in a unified manner. We argue how this might be due to the nature of interactions that are distinct for different prosocial behaviors.

Suggested Citation

  • Arbesman, Samuel & Christakis, Nicholas A., 2011. "Scaling of prosocial behavior in cities," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 390(11), pages 2155-2159.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:390:y:2011:i:11:p:2155-2159
    DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2011.02.013
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Edward L. Glaeser & Joshua D. Gottlieb, 2006. "Urban Resurgence and the Consumer City," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 43(8), pages 1275-1299, July.
    2. Geoffrey B. West & James H. Brown & Brian J. Enquist, 1997. "A General Model for the Origin of Allometric Scaling Laws in Biology," Working Papers 97-03-019, Santa Fe Institute.
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    Cited by:

    1. Michail Fragkias & José Lobo & Deborah Strumsky & Karen C Seto, 2013. "Does Size Matter? Scaling of CO2 Emissions and U.S. Urban Areas," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(6), pages 1-8, June.
    2. Andres Gomez-Lievano & Oscar Patterson-Lomba, 2018. "Estimating the drivers of urban economic complexity and their connection to economic performance," Papers 1812.02842, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2021.
    3. Alexander Jones Gross & Dhiraj Murthy & Lav R. Varshney, 2017. "Pace of Life in Cities and the Emergence of Town Tweeters," SAGE Open, , vol. 7(4), pages 21582440177, December.
    4. J. Lobo & D. Strumsky & J. Rothwell, 2013. "Scaling of patenting with urban population size: evidence from global metropolitan areas," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 96(3), pages 819-828, September.
    5. Li, Zekun & Chen, Zhenhua, 2023. "Predicting the future development scale of high-speed rail through the urban scaling law," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    6. Hu, Zhibin & Wu, Guangdong & Han, Yilong & Niu, Yanliang, 2023. "Unraveling the dynamic changes of high-speed rail network with urban development: Evidence from China," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    7. Diego Rybski & Dominik E Reusser & Anna-Lena Winz & Christina Fichtner & Till Sterzel & Jürgen P Kropp, 2017. "Cities as nuclei of sustainability?," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 44(3), pages 425-440, May.
    8. Yves Bettignies & Joao Meirelles & Gabriela Fernandez & Franziska Meinherz & Paul Hoekman & Philippe Bouillard & Aristide Athanassiadis, 2019. "The Scale-Dependent Behaviour of Cities: A Cross-Cities Multiscale Driver Analysis of Urban Energy Use," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-20, June.
    9. Li, Meng-Hao & Haynes, Kingsley & Kulkarni, Rajendra & Siddique, Abu Bakkar, 2022. "Determinants of voluntary compliance: COVID-19 mitigation," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 310(C).

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