Origin of Peer Influence in Social Networks

Abstract

Social networks pervade our everyday lives: we interact, influence, and are influenced by our friends and acquaintances. With the advent of the World Wide Web, large amounts of data on social networks have become available, allowing the quantitative analysis of the distribution of information on them, including behavioral traits and fads. Recent studies of correlations among members of a social network, who exhibit the same trait, have shown that individuals influence not only their direct contacts but also friends' friends, up to a network distance extending beyond their closest peers. Here, we show how such patterns of correlations between peers emerge in networked populations. We use standard models (yet reflecting intrinsically different mechanisms) of information spreading to argue that empirically observed patterns of correlation among peers emerge naturally from a wide range of dynamics, being essentially independent of the type of information, on how it spreads, and even on the class of underlying network that interconnects individuals. Finally, we show that the sparser and clustered the network, the more far reaching the influence of each individual will be.

Evolution of cooperation under indirect reciprocity and arbitrary exploration rates

“…The simulation technique that we present here, together with the proposed metrics to visualize the emergent dynamics, can provide the appropriate basis in which to study (and evaluate ref. 63) other challenges related with strategic dynamics and reputation systems, such as the effect of considering different reputation management schemes64656667, the design of new underlying structures of interaction3668697071727374 or the formalization of bottom-up artificial morality and machine ethics75.…”

Generalized friendship paradox in networks with tunable degree-attribute correlation

“…(10), we assume the Gamma distribution for the degree as in Eq. (9). Since the analytic results are not sensitive to the variation of α, we use α = 1 for simplicity.…”

“…As individuals are embedded in social networks, their positions in such networks strongly influence their behaviors [3] as well as self-evaluations [6] and subjective well being [7]. In particular, the comparison to friends, colleagues, and peers enables individuals to adopt and transmit opinion, information, and technologies [2,8,9], e.g., for competitiveness [10]. Thus understanding positional differences between individuals is crucial to understanding the emergent collective dynamics at the community or societal level [11].…”

Role model in human physical activity

“…Often in such networks, one person's behavioral change influences others at varying degrees of separation [8,4]. Society consists of complex networks unceasingly disseminating influence and information [6,7]. Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page.…”