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Homophily and the Speed of Social Mobilization: The Effect of Acquired and Ascribed Traits

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  • Jeff Alstott
  • Stuart Madnick
  • Chander Velu

Abstract

Large-scale mobilization of individuals across social networks is becoming increasingly prevalent in society. However, little is known about what affects the speed of social mobilization. Here we use a framed field experiment to identify and measure properties of individuals and their relationships that predict mobilization speed. We ran a global social mobilization contest and recorded personal traits of the participants and those they recruited. We studied the effects of ascribed traits (gender, age) and acquired traits (geography, and information source) on the speed of mobilization. We found that homophily, a preference for interacting with other individuals with similar traits, had a mixed role in social mobilization. Homophily was present for acquired traits, in which mobilization speed was faster when the recuiter and recruit had the same trait compared to different traits. In contrast, we did not find support for homophily for the ascribed traits. Instead, those traits had other, non-homophily effects: Females mobilized other females faster than males mobilized other males. Younger recruiters mobilized others faster, and older recruits mobilized slower. Recruits also mobilized faster when they first heard about the contest directly from the contest organization, and decreased in speed when hearing from less personal source types (e.g. family vs. media). These findings show that social mobilization includes dynamics that are unlike other, more passive forms of social activity propagation. These findings suggest relevant factors for engineering social mobilization tasks for increased speed.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeff Alstott & Stuart Madnick & Chander Velu, 2014. "Homophily and the Speed of Social Mobilization: The Effect of Acquired and Ascribed Traits," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(4), pages 1-9, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0095140
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0095140
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Deutsch, Karl W., 1961. "Social Mobilization and Political Development," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 55(3), pages 493-514, September.
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    Cited by:

    1. Hugo Horta & Shihui Feng & João M. Santos, 2022. "Homophily in higher education research: a perspective based on co-authorships," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(1), pages 523-543, January.
    2. Andrea Tesei & Filipe Campante & Ruben Durante, 2022. "Media and Social Capital," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 14(1), pages 69-91, August.
    3. Jing Wang & Stuart Madnick & Xitong Li & Jeff Alstott & Chander Velu, 2015. "Effect of Media Usage Selection on Social Mobilization Speed: Facebook vs E-Mail," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(9), pages 1-12, September.
    4. Rahul Chawdhary & Laura Weber, 2025. "Investigating the Effectiveness of Received Offline Word of Mouth: Role of Acquired and Ascribed Homophily," FIIB Business Review, , vol. 14(1), pages 58-70, January.
    5. Vincent A Traag, 2016. "Complex Contagion of Campaign Donations," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(4), pages 1-20, April.
    6. Yasmine Saraf & Laureen Khalil & Jarryd Willis & Samantha Yim & Gareth Disler & Jiani Li & Tugral Zeb, 2021. "Misery Implicitly Loves Company: Implicit Homophily and Bully Victimization," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(3), pages 21582440211, August.

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