Statistical physics of social dynamics

2007/10/17 by Claudio Castellano, Santo Fortunato, Vittorio Loreto · 3 voices · 86 citations
Physics and Astronomy · Social Sciences · #Complex Network Analysis Techniques #Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation #Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence #cond-mat.stat-mech #physics.comp-ph #physics.soc-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/revmodphys.81.591

openalex publication_date 2009/05/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30

Abstract

Statistical physics has proven to be a fruitful framework to describe phenomena outside the realm of traditional physics. Recent years have witnessed an attempt by physicists to study collective phenomena emerging from the interactions of individuals as elementary units in social structures. A wide list of topics are reviewed ranging from opinion and cultural and language dynamics to crowd behavior, hierarchy formation, human dynamics, and social spreading. The connections between these problems and other, more traditional, topics of statistical physics are highlighted. Comparison of model results with empirical data from social systems are also emphasized.

Citations

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Cited by

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• Reducibility of higher-order to pairwise interactions: Social impact models on hypergraphs
• Emergence of Chimeras States in One-dimensional Ising model with Long-Range Diffusion
• Exploring Emergent Topological Properties in Socio-Economic Networks through Learning Heterogeneity
• Group size effects and collective misalignment in LLM multi-agent systems
• Evaluating Video Models as Simulators of Multi-Person Pedestrian Trajectories
• When Your AI Agent Succumbs to Peer-Pressure: Studying Opinion-Change Dynamics of LLMs
• Steady-state phase transition in one-dimensional quantum contact process
• Generalizing Condorcet's Jury Theorem to Social Networks
• Three predictions on July 2012 Federal Elections in Mexico based on past regularities
• Data-Driven Modeling of U.S. Ideological Dynamics
• Patterns of Emotional Blogging and Emergence of Communities: Agent-Based Model on Bipartite Networks
• Modelling Territorial Dynamics through Statistical Mechanics: An Application to Resident Foreign Population
• The effect of social balance on social fragmentation
• Geometric vulnerability of democratic institutions against lobbying: a\n sociophysics approach
• Restoring detailed balance in non-Hermitian Markov processes
• Consensus as cooling: a granular gas model for continuous opinions on structured networks
• Dynamics of feedback Ising model
• Numerical methods for quasi-stationary distributions
• Empirical validation of the polarization transition in a double-random field model of elections
• Symmetry breaking in collective decision-making through higher-order interactions
• Heterophilious dynamics enhances consensus
• SkyHash: a Hash Opinion Dynamics Model
• Network entropy as a key to the past: A quantitative approach to complex social networks
• Replication and Information Extraction in a Minimal Agent-Environment Model
• Universal Statistics of Competition in Democratic Elections
• Modeling confirmation bias and polarization
• Scaling theory of armed-conflict avalanches
• Spatial evidence that language change is not neutral
• Mean-field theory of the general-spin Ising model
• Ising dynamics on multilayer networks with heterogeneous layers
• Controversy-seeking fuels rumor-telling activity in polarized opinion networks
• Kinetic Theory of Decentralized Learning for Smart Active Matter
• A semantic embedding space based on large language models for modelling human beliefs
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• The grammar of the Ising model: a new complexity hierarchy
• A noisy opinion formation model with two opposing mass media
• Induced Percolation on Networked Systems
• Frustration, glassy behavior and dynamical annealing in societies of Neural Networks
• The temporal dynamics of group interactions in higher-order social networks
• Group interactions modulate critical mass dynamics in social convention
• Graph-Coupled HMMs for Modeling the Spread of Infection
• An accurate mean-field equation for voter model dynamics on scale-free networks
• From cognitive coherence to political polarization: A data‐driven agent‐based model of belief change
• Knowledge transfer in a tourism destination: the effects of a network structure
• Optimal Feedback Control in Social Networks in a McKean-Vlasov-Friedkin-Johnsen System
• Neuromorphic Intelligence
• Control to flocking of the kinetic Cucker-Smale model
• Schrödinger-invariance in the voter model
• Vortex triplets, symmetry breaking, and emergent nonequilibrium plastic crystals in an active-spinner fluid
• Interacting many-body non-Hermitian systems as Markov chains
• Opinion polarization and its connected disagreement: Modeling and modulation
• The Naming Game on the complete graph
• A social force evacuation model with the leadership effect
• Dynamical Systems on Networks: A Tutorial
• Stewardship of global collective behavior
• Explosive adoption of corrupt behaviors in social systems with higher-order interactions
• Finite-time consensus in a compromise process
• Universality and Invariance in Hegselmann-Krause Opinion Dynamics: Proof of Three Conjectures
• Diffusion-driven pattern formation in an opinion dynamical network model
• Modeling Dynamical Influence in Human Interaction Patterns
• Models of Opinion Dynamics with Random Parametrisation
• The Mathematical Theory of Behavioural Swarms: Towards Modelling the Collective Dynamics of Living Systems
• Selection in Scientific Networks
• Robustness and efficiency of leaderless probabilistic consensus protocols within Byzantine infrastructures
• The closed loop between opinion formation and personalised recommendations
• The structure and dynamics of multilayer networks
• Time-delayed opinion dynamics with leader-follower interactions: consensus, stability, and mean-field limits
• Cognition in Superposition: Quantum Models in AI, Finance, Defence, Gaming and Collective Behaviour
• Wealth Inequality in Agent-Based Economies: The Dominant Role of Social Protection over Growth
• Higher order interactions destroy phase transitions in Deffuant opinion dynamics model
• Higher-order interactions shape collective human behaviour
• Order-disorder-order transitions and winning margins' scaling in kinetic exchange opinion model
• When group level is different from the population level: an adaptive network with the Deffuant model
• Three quantitative predictions based on past regularities about voter turnout at the French 2009 European election
• Collective contributions to polarization in political voting
• The role of zealots in the spread of linguistic traits
• Binary Decision Process in Pre-Evacuation Behavior
• Social insect colony as a biological regulatory system: Information flow in dominance networks
• A Statistical Physics perspective on fairness in shared expenses: The bar bill analogy
• An Optimization-Based Generative Model of Power Laws Using a New Information Theory Based Metric
• Modeling controversies in the press: the case of the abnormal bees'\n death

Discussions

• That field is mature enough to warrant review articles. arxiv.org/abs/0710.3256 [bsky, 4 points, 0 comments]
• Maybe a little bit outdadet, but a lot of examples. Plus Simplagion (www.nature.com/articles/s41...) arxiv.org/abs/0710.3256 [bsky, 3 points, 0 comments]
• Statistical Physics of Social Dynamics (2009) [hn, 1 points, 0 comments]

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