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Evidence for complex contagion models of social contagion from observational data

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  • Daniel A Sprague
  • Thomas House

Abstract

Social influence can lead to behavioural ‘fads’ that are briefly popular and quickly die out. Various models have been proposed for these phenomena, but empirical evidence of their accuracy as real-world predictive tools has so far been absent. Here we find that a ‘complex contagion’ model accurately describes the spread of behaviours driven by online sharing. We found that standard, ‘simple’, contagion often fails to capture both the rapid spread and the long tails of popularity seen in real fads, where our complex contagion model succeeds. Complex contagion also has predictive power: it successfully predicted the peak time and duration of the ALS Icebucket Challenge. The fast spread and longer duration of fads driven by complex contagion has important implications for activities such as publicity campaigns and charity drives.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel A Sprague & Thomas House, 2017. "Evidence for complex contagion models of social contagion from observational data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(7), pages 1-12, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0180802
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0180802
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    1. Antti Gronow & Maria Brockhaus & Monica Di Gregorio & Aasa Karimo & Tuomas Ylä-Anttila, 2021. "Policy learning as complex contagion: how social networks shape organizational beliefs in forest-based climate change mitigation," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 54(3), pages 529-556, September.
    2. Borges, Henrique M. & Vasconcelos, Vítor V. & Pinheiro, Flávio L., 2024. "How social rewiring preferences bridge polarized communities," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).

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