[Colloq] Talk Announcement - Diffusion on Social Networks: Theory and Experiments - Damon Centola, MIT

[Jessica Biron]

Diffusion on Social Networks: Theory and Experiments 
Damon Centola, MIT 

Wednesday, January 23 
2:00-3:15pm 

CCNR - 5th Floor of Dana Research Center 
Please take elevator on left 


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, successful diffusion 
may depend primarily on the width of bridges between otherwise distant locations, not 
just their length. I then demonstrate how new social media technologies can be used to 
evaluate these theoretical results using a novel platform designed to create Internet-based 
experiments of collective behavior. I discuss the broader implications of these new 
methods for studying the interaction of individual behaviors, social networks, and 
collective outcomes. 

Bio: 
Damon Centola is currently an Assistant Professor of Behavioral and Policy Sciences at 
MIT. Before coming to MIT, he was a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy at 
Harvard University, and received his Ph.D. in sociology from Cornell University in 2006. 
His research interests include social epidemiology, the diffusion of innovations and 
cultural norms, and the mobilization of social movements. His current research focuses 
on how patterns of affiliation and interaction can promote, or inhibit, the emergence of 
new forms of collective behavior. This research has won awards for best publication in 
mathematical sociology (2006, 2009, and 2011) and outstanding contribution to 
sociological research (2011). His work has been published across multiple disciplines, 
and in journals such as the American Journal of Sociology, Science, the Journal of 
Statistical Physics, and Circulation (AHA flagship journal in cardiology). 


Jessica Biron 
Administrative Assistant – Office of the Dean and CCIS Development 
College of Computer and Information Science 
Northeastern University 
202 West Village H 
617-373-5204 
bironje at ccs.neu.edu 
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/