2024/11/01 by Laurent Hébert-Dufresne, Hébert-Dufresne, Laurent, Juniper Lovato +9 · 1 voice · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · Social Sciences · #Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence #Complex Network Analysis Techniques #Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/5mph-sws5
Models of how things spread often assume that transmission mechanisms are fixed over time. However, social contagions-the spread of ideas, beliefs, innovations-can lose or gain in momentum as they spread: ideas can get reinforced, beliefs strengthened, products refined. We study the impacts of such self-reinforcement mechanisms in cascade dynamics. We use different mathematical modeling techniques to capture the recursive, yet changing nature of the process. We find a critical regime with a range of power-law cascade size distributions with nonuniversal scaling exponents. This regime clashes with classic models, where criticality requires fine-tuning at a precise critical point. Self-reinforced cascades produce critical-like behavior over a wide range of parameters, which may help explain the ubiquity of power-law distributions in empirical social data.