Events in MathSys and Complexity Science
This is a calendar page detailing events within the MathSys CDT. It also acts as a booking diary for the Seminar Room D1.07. To book D1.07 please email Sheetal.Sharma@warwick.ac.uk
Please note that your event booking is for D1.07 only. The adjacent common room is a private area for the MathSys Centre that cannot used as part of your booking.
MathSys CDT events have priority for D1.07 room bookings.
Click here to see all seminars taking place in the Mathematics InstituteLink opens in a new window
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CANCELLED Complexity Forum - Damon Centola
CANCELLED
Speaker: Damon Centola (MIT)
Title: Diffusion in Social Networks: New Theory and Experiments
Abstract:
The strength of weak ties is that they tend to be long – they connect socially distant locations. Research on “small worlds” shows that these long ties can dramatically reduce the “degrees of separation” of a social network, thereby allowing ideas and behaviors to rapidly diffuse. However, I show that the opposite can also be true. Increasing the frequency of long ties in a clustered social network can also inhibit the diffusion of collective behavior across a population. For health related behaviors that require strong social reinforcement, such as dieting, exercising, smoking cessation, or even condom use, successful diffusion may depend primarily on the width of bridges between otherwise distant locations, not just their length. I present formal and computational results that demonstrate these findings, and then present results from an on-line experiment designed to empirically test the effects of social network topology on the diffusion of behavior.