scholarly journals Voting contagion: Modeling and analysis of a century of U.S. presidential elections

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Braha ◽  
Marcus A. M. de Aguiar
Keyword(s):  
Social Influence ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Social Contagion ◽  
Modeling And Analysis ◽  
Systems Perspective ◽  
Contagion Effects ◽  
The Social ◽  
Parsimonious Model ◽  
Insight Into

Social influence plays an important role in human behavior and decisions. Sources of influence can be divided as external, which are independent of social context, or as originating from peers, such as family and friends. An important question is how to disentangle the social contagion by peers from external influences. While a variety of experimental and observational studies provided insight into this problem, identifying the extent of contagion based on large-scale observational data with an unknown network structure remains largely unexplored. By bridging the gap between the large-scale complex systems perspective of collective human dynamics and the detailed approach of social sciences, we present a parsimonious model of social influence, and apply it to a central topic in political science--elections and voting behavior. We provide an analytical expression of the county vote-share distribution, which is in excellent agreement with almost a century of observed U.S. presidential election data. Analyzing the social influence topography over this period reveals an abrupt phase transition from low to high levels of social contagion, and robust differences among regions. These results suggest that social contagion effects are becoming more instrumental in shaping large-scale collective political behavior, with implications on democratic electoral processes and policies.

scholarly journals Male cooperation for breeding opportunities contributes to the evolution of multilevel societies

2017 ◽  
Vol 284 (1863) ◽  
pp. 20171480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiao-Guang Qi ◽  
Kang Huang ◽  
Gu Fang ◽  
Cyril C. Grueter ◽  
Derek W. Dunn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Social Evolution ◽  
Satellite Telemetry ◽  
Primate Species ◽  
Phylogenetic Reconstructions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Social Evolution ◽  
Male Bonds ◽  
Multilevel Societies ◽  
Insight Into

A small number of primate species including snub-nosed monkeys (colobines), geladas (papionins) and humans live in multilevel societies (MLSs), in which multiple one-male polygamous units (OMUs) coexist to form a band, and non-breeding males associate in bachelor groups. Phylogenetic reconstructions indicate that the papionin MLS appears to have evolved through internal fissioning of large mixed-sex groups, whereas the colobine MLS evolved through the aggregation of small, isolated OMUs. However, how agonistic males maintain tolerance under intensive competition over limited breeding opportunities remains unclear. Using a combination of behavioural analysis, satellite telemetry and genetic data, we quantified the social network of males in a bachelor group of golden snub-nosed monkeys. The results show a strong effect of kinship on social bonds among bachelors. Their interactions ranged from cooperation to agonism, and were regulated by access to mating partners. We suggest that an ‘arms race’ between breeding males' collective defence against usurpation attempts by bachelor males and bachelor males' aggregative offence to obtain reproductive opportunities has selected for larger group size on both sides. The results provide insight into the role that kin selection plays in shaping inter-male cohesion which facilities the evolution of multilevel societies. These findings have implications for understanding human social evolution, as male–male bonds are a hallmark of small- and large-scale human societies.

scholarly journals Why and When "Flawed" Social Network Analyses Still Yield Valid Tests of no Contagion

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyler J. VanderWeele ◽  
Elizabeth L. Ogburn ◽  
Eric J. Tchetgen Tchetgen
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Social Influence ◽  
Confidence Intervals ◽  
Social Contagion ◽  
Statistical Dependence ◽  
Network Analyses ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Network Analyses

Lyons (2011) offered several critiques of the social network analyses of Christakis and Fowler, including issues of confounding, model inconsistency, and statistical dependence in networks. Here we show that in some settings, social network analyses of the type employed by Christakis and Fowler will still yield valid tests of the null of no social contagion, even though estimates and confidence intervals may not be valid. In particular, we show that if the alter's state is lagged by an additional period, then under the null of no contagion, the problems of model inconsistency and statistical dependence effectively disappear which allow for testing for contagion. Our results clarify the setting in which even "flawed" social network analyses are still useful for assessing social contagion and social influence.

scholarly journals Social Influence in Prosocial Behavior: Evidence from a Large-Scale Experiment

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenz Goette ◽  
Egon Tripodi
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Social Influence ◽  
Prosocial Behavior ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Crowding Out ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Reference ◽  
Scale Experiment ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms

Abstract We propose a novel experiment that prevents social learning, thus allowing us to disentangle the underlying mechanisms of social influence. Subjects observe their peer’s incentives, but not their behavior. We find evidence of conformity: when individuals believe that incentives make others contribute more, they also increase their contributions. Conformity is driven by individuals who feel socially close to their peer. However, when incentives are not expected to raise their peer’s contributions, participants reduce their own contributions. Our data is consistent with an erosion of norm-adherence when prosocial behavior of the social reference is driven by extrinsic motives, and cannot be explained by incentive inequality or altruistic crowding out. These findings show scope for social influence in settings with limited observability and offer insights into the mediators of conformity.

Social Dollars in Online Communities: The Effect of Product, User, and Network Characteristics

2018 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eunho Park ◽  
Rishika Rishika ◽  
Ramkumar Janakiraman ◽  
Mark B. Houston ◽  
Byungjoon Yoo
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Influence ◽  
Online Communities ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Social Contagion ◽  
Social Connections ◽  
Network Ties ◽  
Network Characteristics ◽  
The Social ◽  
Hedonic Products

Online communities have experienced burgeoning popularity over the last decade and have become a key platform for users to share information and interests, and to engage in social interactions. Drawing on the social contagion literature, the authors examine the effect of online social connections on users’ product purchases in an online community. They assess how product, user, and network characteristics influence the social contagion effect in users’ spending behavior. The authors use a unique large-scale data set from a popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game community—consisting of users’ detailed gaming activities, their social connections, and their in-game purchases of functional and hedonic products—to examine the impact of gamers’ social networks on their purchase behavior. The analysis, based on a double-hurdle model that captures gamers’ decisions of playing and spending levels, reveals evidence of “social dollars,” whereby social interaction between gamers in the community increases their in-game product purchases. Interestingly, the results indicate that social influence varies across different types of products. Specifically, the effect of a focal user's network ties on his or her spending on hedonic products is greater than the effect of network ties on the focal user's spending on functional products. Furthermore, the authors find that user experience negatively moderates social contagion for functional products, whereas it positively moderates contagion for hedonic products. In addition, dense networks enhance contagion over functional product purchases, whereas they mitigate the social influence effect over hedonic product purchases. The authors perform a series of tests and robustness checks to rule out the effect of confounding factors. They supplement their econometric analyses with dynamic matching techniques and estimate average treatment effects. The results of the study have implications for both theory and practice and help provide insights on how managers can monetize social networks and use social information to increase user engagement in online communities.

Mobiles, Mobs, and Monads

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kélina Gotman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Social Contagion ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Body ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Effects ◽  
The Way

The emergence of crowd theory in nineteenth-century sociology provided a new language for thinking how unruly bodies gather together organically. Drawing on the first large-scale biohistories of the French Revolution, made possible through documents unveiled at the Archives Nationales, theories of crowds, revolutionary and disordered, animal, automatic and ecological, spawned a genealogy of thinking about the way individuals’ movements were rendered—it was thought—primitive in groups. From the ‘Jerks’ in Kentucky and Tennessee to episodes of falling, starting, ticking, and jumping in hospitals, factories and lumber camps, the ‘social body’ appeared to be teetering out of choreopolitical control. Bacchantic drunkenness, like childlike play, epitomized thoughtless imitation and epidemic enthusiasm according to social scientists and neurologists concerned with the political effects of social contagion. Rapidly proliferating automatic gesture provoked crowds, they wrote, to form and significantly to deform—to disorganize—the political, social, and economic spheres, revealing a demos in disarray.

Social Influence and the Social Self

1989 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 450-451
Author(s):  
William P. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Social Influence ◽  
Social Self ◽  
The Social

Party preferences and political participation: the emergence of the Turkish-origin German voter

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-40
Author(s):  
Vera Eccarius-Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Green Party ◽  
Missed Opportunities ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Turkish Origin ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
Specific Interests

The article examines trends in voting preferences and voting behavior of Turkish-origin German voters. Despite only representing a small percentage of the total German electorate, Turkish-origin voters are gaining an opportunity to shape the future political landscape. While the Social Democrats have benefited most directly from the minority constituency so far, this author suggests that the Green Party is poised to attract the younger, better educated, and German-born segment of the Turkish-origin voters. All other dominant national parties have ignored this emerging voting bloc, and missed opportunities to appeal to Turkish-origin voters by disregarding community-specific interests. 

Multiple-source Record Linkage in a Rural Industrial Community, 1680–1820

1994 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 133-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve King
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Life Cycles ◽  
Multiple Source ◽  
Demographic Analysis ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Industrial Community ◽  
The Social ◽  
Broad Outline

Re-creating the social, economic and demographic life-cycles of ordinary people is one way in which historians might engage with the complex continuities and changes which underlay the development of early modern communities. Little, however, has been written on the ways in which historians might deploy computers, rather than card indexes, to the task of identifying such life cycles from the jumble of the sources generated by local and national administration. This article suggests that multiple-source linkage is central to historical and demographic analysis, and reviews, in broad outline, some of the procedures adopted in a study which aims at large scale life cycle reconstruction.

Bologna, My Love: Il Cinema Ritrovato

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 72-79
Author(s):  
Carla Marcantonio
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Francis Ford Coppola ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ongoing Project

FQ books editor Carla Marcantonio guides readers through the 33rd edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival held each year in Bologna at the end of June. Highlights of this year's festival included a restoration of one of Vittorio De Sica's hard-to-find and hence lesser-known films, the social justice fairy tale, Miracolo a Milano (Miracle in Milan, 1951). The film was presented by De Sica's daughter, Emi De Sica, and was an example of the ongoing project to restore De Sica's archive, which was given to the Cineteca de Bologna in 2016. Marcantonio also notes her unexpected responses to certain reviewings; Apocalypse Now: Final Cut (2019), presented by Francis Ford Coppola on the large-scale screen of Piazza Maggiore and accompanied by remastered Dolby Atmos sound, struck her as a tour-de-force while a restoration of David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986) had lost some of its strange allure.

CHAM MUSLIMS IN HO CHI MINH CITY TODAY

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Phu Van Han
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Community Development ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Development Process ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
Ho Chi Minh City ◽  
Social Characteristics ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
The Social ◽  
Insight Into

After more than 30 years of national reform, Ho Chi Minh City has made great changes in economy, living standards and society for all population groups, including the Cham Muslim community. The study clarifies the social characteristics, community development trends in the current sustainable development process of the Cham Muslims. At the same time, explore the adaptability of the community, clarify the aspects of social life and the development of Cham Muslims in Ho Chi Minh City. Thereby, providing insight into a unique cultural lifestyle, harmony between religion and ethnic customs, in a multicultural, colorful city in Ho Chi Minh City today.

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