Social contagions with information sensitivity in complex networks

Abstract: The behavior adoption is a complex social contagion process where non-redundancy and social reinforcement are at work in the transmission of behavioral information. While individual’s attitude toward the behavior information remarkably affects the behavior spreading dynamics in real world, its influence in social contagions has not been fully explored. To this end, we propose a behavior information spreading model with both information sensitivity and social reinforcement, where the information sensitivity represents the degree to which an individual is interested in the behavior. In the process of information spreading, whether an individual accepts or adopts a behavior is affected by the information transmission rate, information sensitivity and social reinforcement. To understand the contagion dynamics of this model, we develop a heterogeneous edge-based compartmental theory. We find that the acceleration of the rate of behavior adoption and the improvement of the scope of behavior adoption can be achieved by increasing either the information transmission rate, information sensitivity or social reinforcement. In ER networks, by changing the values of transmission rate, information sensitivity and social reinforcement, the type of phase transition of the final adopted size can be transformed between continuous and discontinuous. In BA networks, under different values of transmission rate, information sensitivity and social reinforcement, the final adopted size is continuously increasing.