369 research outputs found
The Collective Dynamics of Smoking in a Large Social Network
Based on repeated surveys of 12,067 closely interconnected people between 1971 and 2000, examines the extent to which smoking spreads socially and to which groups of smokers quit together, as well as trends in the number and social centrality of smokers
Friendship and Natural Selection
More than any other species, humans form social ties to individuals who are
neither kin nor mates, and these ties tend to be with similar people. Here, we
show that this similarity extends to genotypes. Across the whole genome,
friends' genotypes at the SNP level tend to be positively correlated
(homophilic); however, certain genotypes are negatively correlated
(heterophilic). A focused gene set analysis suggests that some of the overall
correlation can be explained by specific systems; for example, an olfactory
gene set is homophilic and an immune system gene set is heterophilic. Finally,
homophilic genotypes exhibit significantly higher measures of positive
selection, suggesting that, on average, they may yield a synergistic fitness
advantage that has been helping to drive recent human evolution
Spreading in Social Systems: Reflections
In this final chapter, we consider the state-of-the-art for spreading in
social systems and discuss the future of the field. As part of this reflection,
we identify a set of key challenges ahead. The challenges include the following
questions: how can we improve the quality, quantity, extent, and accessibility
of datasets? How can we extract more information from limited datasets? How can
we take individual cognition and decision making processes into account? How
can we incorporate other complexity of the real contagion processes? Finally,
how can we translate research into positive real-world impact? In the
following, we provide more context for each of these open questions.Comment: 7 pages, chapter to appear in "Spreading Dynamics in Social Systems";
Eds. Sune Lehmann and Yong-Yeol Ahn, Springer Natur
Five Minutes with Nicholas A. Christakis: “Discovery is greatly facilitated by methodological innovation.”
Managing Editor Sierra Williams spoke to Professor Nicholas A. Christakis ahead of next week’s LSE event, Do We Need to Shake Up the Social Sciences? Here he discusses his thoughts on the frontiers in interdisciplinary research, the need for social science departmental re-shuffles, and the radical changes shaping social science’s relevance today
Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network: longitudinal analysis over 20 years in the Framingham Heart Study
Objectives To evaluate whether happiness can spread from person to person and whether niches of happiness form within social networks
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