Social contagions on weighted networks

TL;DR

This paper studies how weighted network structures influence social contagion dynamics, revealing that degree heterogeneity affects transition types and adoption size, while weight heterogeneity generally hinders contagion spread.

Contribution

It introduces an edge-weight compartmental approach to analyze social contagions on weighted networks with diverse degree and weight distributions.

Findings

Degree heterogeneity changes contagion transition from discontinuous to continuous.

Heterogeneity in weight distribution always hampers social contagion.

Weight heterogeneity does not change the transition type.

Abstract

We investigate critical behaviors of a social contagion model on weighted networks. An edge-weight compartmental approach is applied to analyze the weighted social contagion on strongly heterogenous networks with skewed degree and weight distributions. We find that degree heterogeneity can not only alter the nature of contagion transition from discontinuous to continuous but also can enhance or hamper the size of adoption, depending on the unit transmission probability. We also show that, the heterogeneity of weight distribution always hinder social contagions, and does not alter the transition type.