Social Cliques Spread Behaviors Across Social Networks Farther and Faster

Recent research published in the September 3, 2010 issue of Science shows that social cliques (clustered ties with a high degree of separation between clusters) are more effective at spreading behaviors across social networks than less tightly knit social groups that provide shortcuts across social space.

This finding is surprising since you might think that behavior would spread faster the broader the individual contacts across social space. On the other hand, a social clique is natural for a human so perhaps it’s not surprising that it’s optimal for spreading behavior (assuming that spreading new behaviors as rapidly as possible improves the chances for survival).

The paper, titled “The Spread of Behavior in an Online Social Network Experiment,” also reported that adoption of a behavior became increasingly likely the second, third, and fourth time an individual received a recommendation from a social network friend. More recommendations didn’t affect adoption.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to see if those with really large clusters of social network friends (for example, individuals with thousands of Facebook friends) move out of the optimal social clique configuration. Perhaps collecting as many social network friends as you can get changes recommendations into noise?

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