Social nucleation: Group formation as a phase transition
arXiv:2107.06696 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.105.044301
Abstract
The spontaneous formation and subsequent growth, dissolution, merger and competition of social groups bears similarities to physical phase transitions in metastable finite systems. We examine three different scenarios, percolation, spinodal decomposition and nucleation, to describe the formation of social groups of varying size and density. In our agent-based model, we use a feedback between the opinions of agents and their ability to establish links. Groups can restrict further link formation, but agents can also leave if costs exceed the group benefits. We identify the critical parameters for costs/benefits and social influence to obtain either one large group or the stable coexistence of several groups with different opinions. Analytic investigations allow to derive different critical densities that control the formation and coexistence of groups. Our novel approach sheds new light on the early stage of network growth and the emergence of large connected components.
References in corpus (14)
- Statistical physics of social dynamics
- Networks beyond pairwise interactions: structure and dynamics
- Continuous Opinion Dynamics under Bounded Confidence: A Survey
- Preferential attachment in the growth of social networks: the case of Wikipedia
- Dynamics of Social Balance on Networks
- Triadic closure as a basic generating mechanism of communities in complex networks
- GED: the method for group evolution discovery in social networks
- Motif-based communities in complex networks
- Multilayer weighted social network model
- An agent-based model of multi-dimensional opinion dynamics and opinion alignment
- Homophily based on few attributes can impede structural balance
- Phase transitions in social networks
- The ambiguous role of social influence on the wisdom of crowds: An analytic approach
- Social percolation revisited: From 2d lattices to adaptive networks