Adaptive behaviors neutralize bistable explosive transitions in higher-order contagion

2026/01/09 by Marco Mancastroppa, Márton Karsai, Alain Barrat · 1 voice · 2 citations
Environmental Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Ecosystem dynamics and resilience #cs.SI #nlin.AO #physics.soc-ph #stochastic dynamics and bifurcation

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/1sgn-k3fk

openalex publication_date 2026/05/13 · openalex created_date 2026/05/14 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

During contagion phenomena, individuals perceiving a risk of infection commonly adapt their behavior and reduce their exposure. The effects of such adaptive mechanisms have been studied for processes in which pairwise interactions drive contagion. However, contagion and the perception of infection risk can also involve (“higher-order”) group interactions, leading potentially to new phenomenology. How adaptive behavior resulting from risk perception affects higher-order processes remains an open question. Here, we consider the impact of several risk-based adaptive behaviors on pairwise and higher-order contagion processes, using numerical simulations and an analytical mean-field approach. For pairwise contagion, adaptive mechanisms based on local (pairwise or group-based) risk perception impact only the endemic state, without affecting the epidemic phase transition. For higher-order contagion processes, instead, the adaptivity defuses the impact of nonlinear group interactions: This reduces or even completely suppresses the parameter range in which bistability is possible, effectively transforming a higher-order contagion process into a pairwise one.

Citations

• Higher-order network adaptivity: co-evolution of higher-order structure and spreading dynamics
• Characteristic scales and adaptation in higher-order contagions
• Higher-order dissimilarity measures for hypergraph comparison
• Decoding how higher-order network interactions shape complex contagion dynamics
• Epidemic paradox induced by awareness driven network dynamics
• Distinguishing mechanisms of social contagion from local network view
• Epidemic-induced local awareness behavior inferred from surveys and genetic sequence data
• Hyperedge overlap drives explosive collective behaviors in systems with higher-order interactions
• Higher order interactions destroy phase transitions in Deffuant opinion dynamics model
• Networks beyond pairwise interactions: Structure and dynamics
• Phase transitions and stability of dynamical processes on hypergraphs
• The physics of higher-order interactions in complex systems
• Group interactions modulate critical mass dynamics in social convention
• Topology shapes dynamics of higher-order networks
• Higher-order adaptive behaviors outperform pairwise strategies in mitigating contagion dynamics

Cited by

• Group adaptation drives opinion dynamics in higher-order networks
• Higher-order adaptive behaviors outperform pairwise strategies in mitigating contagion dynamics

Discussions

• New preprint out! 📣 Great collaboration w/ @martonkarsai.bsky.social and @alainbarrat.bsky.social! How do adaptive behaviors, triggered by risk perception, affect higher-order contagion processes? Wh [bsky, 7 points, 1 comments]

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