Damon Centola
Biographic Data
| ID | 259092 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Damon Centola |
| GIVEN NAMES | Damon |
| FAMILY NAME | Centola |
| SIGNATURE | CENTOLA D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Pennsylvania |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8084-2333 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 524 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Experimental Evidence that Social Learning in Structured Information-Sharing Networks Corrects Anchoring Bias
The anchoring effect is a cognitive bias in which exposure to arbitrary initial values disproportionately influences estimates. While this effect has been widely documented, its role in social contexts remains unclear. Laboratory studies of isolated individuals often show stronger anchoring effects than naturalistic settings where people interact in social networks. We propose that social networks can amplify or attenuate anchoring depending on w…
Scaling Up Change
Anthropogenic carbon emissions have the potential to trigger changes in climate and ecosystems that would be catastrophic for the well-being of humans and other species. Widespread shifts in production and consumption patterns are urgently needed to address climate change. Although transnational agreements and national policy are necessary for a transition to a fully decarbonized global economy, fluctuating political priorities and lobbying by ve…
Complex contagions
Decades of research in analytical sociology has shown the importance of social networks for the acceptance and spread of innovations, ideas, norms and beliefs. In the last decade, new research on the dynamics of complex contagions has broadened the field of analytical sociology by uncovering new and counterintuitive mechanisms that govern the interaction between different kinds of social contagions and the structure of social networks. A number o…
Influential networks
Social Networks and Health
The relationship between social networks and health encompasses everything from the flow of pathogens and information to the diffusion of beliefs and behaviors. This review addresses the vast and multidisciplinary literature that studies social networks as a structural determinant of health. In particular, we report on the current state of knowledge on how social contagion dynamics influence individual and collective health outcomes. We pay speci…
How Behavior Spreads
Experimental evidence for tipping points in social convention
Tipping points in social convention Once a population has converged on a consensus, how can a group with a minority viewpoint overturn it? Theoretical models have emphasized tipping points, whereby a sufficiently large minority can change the societal norm. Centola et al. devised a system to study this in controlled experiments. Groups of people who had achieved a consensus about the name of a person shown in a picture were individually exposed t…
How Behavior Spreads
A new, counterintuitive theory for how social networks influence the spread of behavior. New social movements, technologies, and public-health initiatives often struggle to take off, yet many diseases disperse rapidly without issue. Can the lessons learned from the viral diffusion of diseases be used to improve the spread of beneficial behaviors and innovations? In How Behavior Spreads, Damon Centola presents over a decade of original research ex…
Choosing your network
The Social Origins of Networks and Diffusion
Recent research on social contagion has demonstrated significant effects of network topology on the dynamics of diffusion. However, network topologies are not given a priori. Rather, they are patterns of relations that emerge from individual and structural features of society, such as population composition, group heterogeneity, homophily, and social consolidation. Following Blau and Schwartz, the author develops a model of social network formati…
Homophily, networks, and critical mass
Formal theories of collective action face the problem that in large groups a single actor makes such a small impact on the collective good that cooperation is irrational. Critical mass theorists argue that this 'large group problem' can be solved by an initial critical mass of contributors, whose efforts can produce a 'bandwagon' effect, making cooperation rational for the remaining members of the population. However, critical mass theory require…
The Spread of Behavior in an Online Social Network Experiment
Join the Club An important question for policy-makers is how to communicate information (for example, about public health interventions) and promote behavior change most effectively across a population. The structure of a social network can dramatically affect the diffusion of behavior through a population. Centola (p. 1194 ) examined whether the number of individuals choosing to register for a health forum could be influenced by an artificially …
Failure in Complex Social Networks
A class of inhomogenously wired networks called “scale-free” networks have been shown to be more robust against failure than more homogenously connected exponential networks. The robustness of scale-free networks consists in their ability to remain connected even when failure occurs. The diffusion of information and disease across a network only requires a single contact between nodes, making network connectivity the crucial determinant of whethe…
Homophily, Cultural Drift, and the Co-Evolution of Cultural Groups
Studies of cultural differentiation have shown that social mechanisms that normally lead to cultural convergence—homophily and influence—can also explain how distinct cultural groups can form. However, this emergent cultural diversity has proven to be unstable in the face of cultural drift—small errors or innovations that allow cultures to change from within. The authors develop a model of cultural differentiation that combines the traditional me…
Complex Contagions and the Weakness of Long Ties
The strength of weak ties is that they tend to be long—they connect socially distant locations, allowing information to diffuse rapidly. The authors test whether this “strength of weak ties” generalizes from simple to complex contagions. Complex contagions require social affirmation from multiple sources. Examples include the spread of high‐risk social movements, avant garde fashions, and unproven technologies. Results show that as adoption thres…
The Emperor's Dilemma
The authors demonstrate the uses of agent‐based computational models in an application to a social enigma they call the “emperor’s dilemma,” based on the Hans Christian Andersen fable. In this model, agents must decide whether to comply with and enforce a norm that is supported by a few fanatics and opposed by the vast majority. They find that cascades of self‐reinforcing support for a highly unpopular norm cannot occur in a fully connected socia…
Complex Contagions and the Weakness of Long Ties
The strength of weak ties is that they tend to be long—they connect socially distant locations, allowing information to diffuse rapidly. The authors test whether this “strength of weak ties” generalizes from simple to complex contagions. Complex contagions require social affirmation from multiple sources. Examples include the spread of high‐risk social movements, avant garde fashions, and unproven technologies. Results show that as adoption thres…
The Emperor's Dilemma
The authors demonstrate the uses of agent‐based computational models in an application to a social enigma they call the “emperor’s dilemma,” based on the Hans Christian Andersen fable. In this model, agents must decide whether to comply with and enforce a norm that is supported by a few fanatics and opposed by the vast majority. They find that cascades of self‐reinforcing support for a highly unpopular norm cannot occur in a fully connected socia…
The Social Origins of Networks and Diffusion
Recent research on social contagion has demonstrated significant effects of network topology on the dynamics of diffusion. However, network topologies are not given a priori. Rather, they are patterns of relations that emerge from individual and structural features of society, such as population composition, group heterogeneity, homophily, and social consolidation. Following Blau and Schwartz, the author develops a model of social network formati…
Homophily, Cultural Drift, and the Co-Evolution of Cultural Groups
Studies of cultural differentiation have shown that social mechanisms that normally lead to cultural convergence—homophily and influence—can also explain how distinct cultural groups can form. However, this emergent cultural diversity has proven to be unstable in the face of cultural drift—small errors or innovations that allow cultures to change from within. The authors develop a model of cultural differentiation that combines the traditional me…
Social Networks and Health
The relationship between social networks and health encompasses everything from the flow of pathogens and information to the diffusion of beliefs and behaviors. This review addresses the vast and multidisciplinary literature that studies social networks as a structural determinant of health. In particular, we report on the current state of knowledge on how social contagion dynamics influence individual and collective health outcomes. We pay speci…
Choosing your network
Homophily, networks, and critical mass
Formal theories of collective action face the problem that in large groups a single actor makes such a small impact on the collective good that cooperation is irrational. Critical mass theorists argue that this 'large group problem' can be solved by an initial critical mass of contributors, whose efforts can produce a 'bandwagon' effect, making cooperation rational for the remaining members of the population. However, critical mass theory require…
Failure in Complex Social Networks
A class of inhomogenously wired networks called “scale-free” networks have been shown to be more robust against failure than more homogenously connected exponential networks. The robustness of scale-free networks consists in their ability to remain connected even when failure occurs. The diffusion of information and disease across a network only requires a single contact between nodes, making network connectivity the crucial determinant of whethe…
The Emperor's Dilemma
The authors demonstrate the uses of agent‐based computational models in an application to a social enigma they call the “emperor’s dilemma,” based on the Hans Christian Andersen fable. In this model, agents must decide whether to comply with and enforce a norm that is supported by a few fanatics and opposed by the vast majority. They find that cascades of self‐reinforcing support for a highly unpopular norm cannot occur in a fully connected socia…
Homophily, Cultural Drift, and the Co-Evolution of Cultural Groups
Studies of cultural differentiation have shown that social mechanisms that normally lead to cultural convergence—homophily and influence—can also explain how distinct cultural groups can form. However, this emergent cultural diversity has proven to be unstable in the face of cultural drift—small errors or innovations that allow cultures to change from within. The authors develop a model of cultural differentiation that combines the traditional me…
Complex Contagions and the Weakness of Long Ties
The strength of weak ties is that they tend to be long—they connect socially distant locations, allowing information to diffuse rapidly. The authors test whether this “strength of weak ties” generalizes from simple to complex contagions. Complex contagions require social affirmation from multiple sources. Examples include the spread of high‐risk social movements, avant garde fashions, and unproven technologies. Results show that as adoption thres…
Failure in Complex Social Networks
A class of inhomogenously wired networks called “scale-free” networks have been shown to be more robust against failure than more homogenously connected exponential networks. The robustness of scale-free networks consists in their ability to remain connected even when failure occurs. The diffusion of information and disease across a network only requires a single contact between nodes, making network connectivity the crucial determinant of whethe…
The Spread of Behavior in an Online Social Network Experiment
Join the Club An important question for policy-makers is how to communicate information (for example, about public health interventions) and promote behavior change most effectively across a population. The structure of a social network can dramatically affect the diffusion of behavior through a population. Centola (p. 1194 ) examined whether the number of individuals choosing to register for a health forum could be influenced by an artificially …
Homophily, networks, and critical mass
Formal theories of collective action face the problem that in large groups a single actor makes such a small impact on the collective good that cooperation is irrational. Critical mass theorists argue that this 'large group problem' can be solved by an initial critical mass of contributors, whose efforts can produce a 'bandwagon' effect, making cooperation rational for the remaining members of the population. However, critical mass theory require…
Choosing your network
The Social Origins of Networks and Diffusion
Recent research on social contagion has demonstrated significant effects of network topology on the dynamics of diffusion. However, network topologies are not given a priori. Rather, they are patterns of relations that emerge from individual and structural features of society, such as population composition, group heterogeneity, homophily, and social consolidation. Following Blau and Schwartz, the author develops a model of social network formati…
How Behavior Spreads
Experimental evidence for tipping points in social convention
Tipping points in social convention Once a population has converged on a consensus, how can a group with a minority viewpoint overturn it? Theoretical models have emphasized tipping points, whereby a sufficiently large minority can change the societal norm. Centola et al. devised a system to study this in controlled experiments. Groups of people who had achieved a consensus about the name of a person shown in a picture were individually exposed t…
How Behavior Spreads
A new, counterintuitive theory for how social networks influence the spread of behavior. New social movements, technologies, and public-health initiatives often struggle to take off, yet many diseases disperse rapidly without issue. Can the lessons learned from the viral diffusion of diseases be used to improve the spread of beneficial behaviors and innovations? In How Behavior Spreads, Damon Centola presents over a decade of original research ex…
Influential networks
Social Networks and Health
The relationship between social networks and health encompasses everything from the flow of pathogens and information to the diffusion of beliefs and behaviors. This review addresses the vast and multidisciplinary literature that studies social networks as a structural determinant of health. In particular, we report on the current state of knowledge on how social contagion dynamics influence individual and collective health outcomes. We pay speci…
Complex contagions
Decades of research in analytical sociology has shown the importance of social networks for the acceptance and spread of innovations, ideas, norms and beliefs. In the last decade, new research on the dynamics of complex contagions has broadened the field of analytical sociology by uncovering new and counterintuitive mechanisms that govern the interaction between different kinds of social contagions and the structure of social networks. A number o…
Scaling Up Change
Anthropogenic carbon emissions have the potential to trigger changes in climate and ecosystems that would be catastrophic for the well-being of humans and other species. Widespread shifts in production and consumption patterns are urgently needed to address climate change. Although transnational agreements and national policy are necessary for a transition to a fully decarbonized global economy, fluctuating political priorities and lobbying by ve…
Experimental Evidence that Social Learning in Structured Information-Sharing Networks Corrects Anchoring Bias
The anchoring effect is a cognitive bias in which exposure to arbitrary initial values disproportionately influences estimates. While this effect has been widely documented, its role in social contexts remains unclear. Laboratory studies of isolated individuals often show stronger anchoring effects than naturalistic settings where people interact in social networks. We propose that social networks can amplify or attenuate anchoring depending on w…
Psychology (10 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Social Psychology (8 works) · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation (7 works) · Complex Network Analysis Techniques (6 works) · Social science (6 works) · World Wide Web (6 works) · Epistemology (5 works)