Wednesday, October 1, 2025
Science
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • SCIENCE NEWS
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME
  • SCIENCE NEWS
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Scienmag
No Result
View All Result
Home Science News Mathematics

Infected: understanding the spread of behavior

April 23, 2024
in Mathematics
Reading Time: 2 mins read
0
Infected: understanding the spread of behavior
67
SHARES
612
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
ADVERTISEMENT

Human beings are likely to adopt the thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors of those around them. 

Human beings are likely to adopt the thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors of those around them. 

Simple decisions like what local store is best to shop at to more complex ones like vaccinating a child are influenced by these behavior patterns and social discourse. 

“We choose to be in networks, both offline and online, that are compatible with our own thinking,” explained Amin Rahimian, assistant professor of industrial engineering at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering. “The social contagion of behavior through networks can help us understand how and why new norms, products, and ideas are adopted.” 

Initially, researchers thought highly clustered ties that are close together in networks created the perfect environment for the spread of complex behaviors that require significant social reinforcement. However, Rahimian, alongside a team of researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University, counter these ideas. Long ties, which are created through randomly rewired edges that make them ‘longer,’ accelerate the spread of social contagions. For example, in the age of social media, long ties can facilitate broader reach across different demographics and heterogeneous populations. Rather than just communicating with one’s neighbor, one may also be connecting with someone in another state – even another country. 

By using mathematical and statistical methods, the researchers were able to analyze the rate of spread over circular lattices with long ties and show that having a small probability of adoption below the contagion threshold is enough to ensure that random rewiring accelerates the spread of these contagions. 

“Mechanisms that we identify for spread on circular lattices remain valid in higher dimensions,”  explained Rahimian.

Similar network dynamics arise in the study of neural activity in the brain.

 “We are interested in the implications of these results for a better understanding of network structures that facilitate the spread of bursting activity in various brain regions,” explained Jonathan Rubin, professor in Pitt’s Department of Mathematics.

This research suggests those wanting to achieve fast, total spread would benefit from implementing intervention points across network neighborhoods with long-tie connections to other network regions, explained Dean Eckles, associate professor of marketing at MIT.

“Further work could study such strategies for seeding complex behaviors,” Eckles continued. 

The paper, “Long ties accelerate noisy threshold-based contagions,” was recently published in Nature Human Behavior. 

Other researchers on the project include: 

  • Elchanan Mossel, Professor of Mathematics at MIT
  • Subhabrata Sen, Assistant Professor of Statistics at Harvard University


Share27Tweet17
Previous Post

TU Dresden co-launches new international Master’s Program on Water Security and Global Change

Next Post

Social media use linked to tobacco initiation among youth

Related Posts

blank
Mathematics

Self-Efficacy and Test Anxiety Impact Math Performance More Than Co-Teaching, Study Finds

October 1, 2025
blank
Mathematics

INFORMS Announces 12 Visionary Leaders and Innovators as Class of 2025 Fellows in Operations Research and Analytics

October 1, 2025
blank
Mathematics

AR and AI Technologies Enable Automatic Diagnosis of Agromyzid Leafminer Damage Levels

September 30, 2025
blank
Mathematics

Electroacupuncture Shows Promise for Early Urinary Incontinence Following Radical Prostatectomy

September 30, 2025
blank
Mathematics

Breakthrough in Scalable, Efficient Quantum Error Correction Paves the Way for Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computing

September 29, 2025
blank
Mathematics

How Blockchain Technology Can Enhance Trust in the Restaurant Industry

September 26, 2025
Next Post
Social media use linked to tobacco initiation among youth

Social media use linked to tobacco initiation among youth

  • Mothers who receive childcare support from maternal grandparents show more parental warmth, finds NTU Singapore study

    Mothers who receive childcare support from maternal grandparents show more parental warmth, finds NTU Singapore study

    27561 shares
    Share 11021 Tweet 6888
  • University of Seville Breaks 120-Year-Old Mystery, Revises a Key Einstein Concept

    970 shares
    Share 388 Tweet 243
  • Bee body mass, pathogens and local climate influence heat tolerance

    646 shares
    Share 258 Tweet 162
  • Researchers record first-ever images and data of a shark experiencing a boat strike

    513 shares
    Share 205 Tweet 128
  • Groundbreaking Clinical Trial Reveals Lubiprostone Enhances Kidney Function

    476 shares
    Share 190 Tweet 119
Science

Embark on a thrilling journey of discovery with Scienmag.com—your ultimate source for cutting-edge breakthroughs. Immerse yourself in a world where curiosity knows no limits and tomorrow’s possibilities become today’s reality!

RECENT NEWS

  • Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms in Depressed Teens
  • Pancreatic 68Ga-FAPI PET/CT Uptake Insights
  • Self-Diagnosed ADHD Individuals Experience Greater Negative Self-Image and Internalized Stigma, Study of 450,000 Reddit Posts Reveals
  • Rasch Analysis of Chinese Hamilton Depression Scale

Categories

  • Agriculture
  • Anthropology
  • Archaeology
  • Athmospheric
  • Biology
  • Blog
  • Bussines
  • Cancer
  • Chemistry
  • Climate
  • Earth Science
  • Marine
  • Mathematics
  • Medicine
  • Pediatry
  • Policy
  • Psychology & Psychiatry
  • Science Education
  • Social Science
  • Space
  • Technology and Engineering

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 5,185 other subscribers

© 2025 Scienmag - Science Magazine

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • HOME
  • SCIENCE NEWS
  • CONTACT US

© 2025 Scienmag - Science Magazine

Discover more from Science

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading