Contagion Processes Research Articles

The viral politics of masks: pandemic resistance and ontological performance

ABSTRACT 2020 may well become known as the year of the mask, harkening to an omnipresent threat of molecular contagion and trans-corporeal intermingling. This article traces the ways in which bodies materially relate and co-constituted one another over the course of the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. Highlighting the role of a virus in reshaping human social interaction and “self”-presentation, “everyday performance” with face-masks is posited as a way of simultaneously altering material processes of contagion while making perceptible the ethical relations and commitments that shape these processes.

Metapopulation models imply non-Poissonian statistics of interevent times

Interevent times in temporal contact data from humans and animals typically obey heavy-tailed distributions, and this property impacts contagion and other dynamical processes on networks. We theoretically show that distributions of interevent times heavier-tailed than exponential distributions are a consequence of the most basic metapopulation model used in epidemiology and ecology, in which individuals move from a patch to another according to the simple random walk. Our results hold true irrespectively of the network structure and also for more realistic mobility rules such as high-order random walks and the recurrent mobility patterns used for modeling human dynamics.

The importance of a collaborative culture for teachers’ job satisfaction and affective commitment

Prior research has shown the importance of collaborative culture as well as teacher job satisfaction and commitment in navigating complex school improvement processes. This study investigated the relationship between collaborative culture, affective commitment, and job satisfaction of teachers taking both collaborative cultures in the entire school, as well as in informal subgroups, into account. Survey data of 760 teachers, nested in 136 subgroups and 13 secondary schools, were analyzed using multilevel path analyses. Results show that collaborative culture in the informal subgroup is positively related to teachers’ affective commitment and job satisfaction and that affective commitment is a mediator. The collaborative culture at the school level was not a significant predictor. School leaders need to be aware that there are, to some extent, subgroups within the school which develop their own collaborative culture through social contagion processes which impact job satisfaction and affective commitment to a greater extent than the school-level culture.

A Qualitative Exploration of Collective Collapse in a Norwegian Qualifying Premier League Soccer Match-The Successful Team's Perspective.

The current case study focused on a crucial match in the qualification for the Norwegian Premier League (Eliteserien). In the match, the participants of the study experienced a radical change in performance toward the end of the second half, from being behind by several goals to scoring 3 goals in 6 min and winning the qualifying game. The purpose of this study was therefore to examine the perceptions and reflections of players and coaches (sporting director) on what occurred within their own team and within the opposing team. The momentum shift in the opposition team can be described as a collective collapse. In the study, the theoretical collective collapse process model was used as a guide for the design of the interview questions where five semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants involved in the match (players, coach, and sporting director). The participants watched excerpt clips from the match to recall the main events, which they subsequently reflected on. The results highlighted the importance of the “before-game” aspects (i.e., pressure, first game result), the “during-the-game” behavior (i.e., goals scored, playing with a low degree of risk) and the cognitive (i.e., feelings of pressure, despair) and emotional reactions (i.e., frustration, joy) to the match unfolding. In addition, social contagion processes were evident in both teams relating to emotion and behavior. Overall, the data from this study investigated the general structure of the process model of collective sport team collapse and found support for the notion of a temporal cascade of causes for a team collapse. Future research is encouraged to examine this model, to provide guidance to teams, coaches, and sport psychologists in order to make recommendations for dealing with collective collapse in sport teams.

How surface and fomite infection affect contagion dynamics: a study with self-propelled particles.

Self-propelled particles have been a tool of choice for many studies for understanding spatial interaction of people and propagation of infectious diseases. Other than the direct contagion process through face-to-face contacts with an infected agent, in some diseases, like COVID-19, the disease can spread by indirect ways, through contaminated object surfaces and puff-clouds created by the infected individual. However, this dual spreading process and the impact of these indirect infections in the entire dynamics are not properly explored. In this work, we consider epidemic spreading in an artificial society, with realistic parameters and movements of people, along with the possibilities of indirect exposure through contaminated surfaces and puff-clouds. This particular simulation based infectious disease dynamics is associated with the movements of some self-propelled free agents executing random motion which is investigated in conjunction with the rules of a realistic contagion process. With mathematical formulation and extensive computational studies, we have accommodated the indirect infection possibilities into the dynamics by incorporating an infectious ‘tail’ with the infected individuals. Analytical expressions of survival distance and infection probability of individuals have been explicitly calculated and reported. Results of precise and comparative simulation study have revealed the seriousness of indirect infections in connection with several dynamical parameters. Using this framework, interpretation of multiple waves in local as well as global scenarios have been established for COVID-19 infection statistics. Furthermore, the importance of indirect infections are also pointed out through data fitting, showing that ignoring this component might cause a misinterpretation of the dynamical parameters, like, imposed restrictions.

Territorial Distribution of EU Funds Allocation for Developments of Rural Romania during 2014–2020

This study uses cross-section regressions and spatial econometrics techniques to identify determinants of rural development project implementation based on the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) of the European Union. For this, we use 40 Romanian counties. Results show that agricultural land abundancy and land concentration degree are significant positive factors. On the contrary, the local human development level is a negative determinant, low values for this factor being an incentive to compensate the lack of own resources through European funding. No significant effects of the average salary or population density were depicted. Spatial analysis indicates contagion and diffusion processes for fund accession through projects. This behavior is like that in other financial sectors, in which human behavior is a decisive factor, such as the insurance one. A West–East clusterization process is identified for the total project value, conditioned by the identified factors.

The Credit Risk Contagion Mechanism of Financial Guarantee Network: An Application of the SEIR‐Epidemic Model

Financing guarantee is an important means and key link to solve the financing difficulties of small‐ and medium‐size enterprises (SMEs). However, while financial guarantees alleviate the financing difficulties of SMEs, the complex guarantee relationships also constitute a new channel for credit risk contagion in the financial guarantee network. In this paper, we construct a model of credit risk contagion process of guarantee network based on SEIR and analyse the equilibrium point and stability of the model. Then, we find the threshold value of risk contagion and further simulate the SEIR model dynamically to analyse the influence of each parameter of the model. The results show that the risk of the financing guarantee network begins to be widely contagious only when risk contagion threshold is greater than 1, and the conversion rate of exposed enterprises, removal rate of infected enterprises, nodal enterprises degree, and risk contagion rate have significant effects on the changes of individual density of susceptible, exposed, infected, and recovered enterprises. Combining the above findings, it is of great theoretical and practical significance to propose relevant countermeasures for credit risk control of financial guarantee network.

Co-Evolution of Viral Processes and Structural Stability in Signed Social Networks

Prediction and control of spreading processes in social networks (SNs) are closely tied to the underlying connectivity patterns. Contrary to most existing efforts that exclusively focus on positive social user interactions, the impact of contagion processes on the temporal evolution of signed SNs (SSNs) with distinctive friendly (positive) and hostile (negative) relationships yet, remains largely unexplored. In this paper, we study the interplay between social link polarity and propagation of viral phenomena coupled with user alertness. In particular, we propose a novel energy model built on Heider's balance theory that relates the stochastic susceptible-alert-infected-susceptible epidemic dynamical model with the structural balance of SSNs to substantiate the trade-off between social tension and epidemic spread. Moreover, the role of hostile social links in the formation of disjoint friendly clusters of alerted and infected users is analyzed. Using three real-world SSN datasets, we further present a time-efficient algorithm to expedite the energy computation in our Monte-Carlo simulation method and show compelling insights on the effectiveness and rationality of user awareness and initial network settings in reaching structurally balanced local and global network energy states.

From Chatter to Action: How Social Networks Inform and Motivate in Rural Uganda

AbstractFrom public health to political campaigns, numerous attempts to encourage behavior begin with the spread of information. Of course, seeding new information does not guarantee action, especially when it is difficult for receivers to verify this information. We use a novel design that introduced valuable, actionable information in rural Uganda and reveals the intermediate process that led many in the village to hear the information but only some to act on it. We find that the seeded information spread easily through word of mouth via a simple contagion process. However, acting on the information spread less easily; this process relied instead on endogenously created social information that served to vet, verify, and pass judgment. Our results highlight an important wedge between information that a policy intervention can best control and the behavior that ultimately results.

Perceptions of Partner Affect Mediate Affect Contagion in Older Couples' Daily Life: An Experience-Sampling Study

Intimate relationship partners dynamically covary in their affective states. One mechanism through which intimate relationship partners experience and shape each other’s affective states is affect contagion, i.e., the spread of affective states from one person to another. The degree to which social-cognitive processes are involved in affect contagion in daily life remains unclear. The majority of older adults live together with a spouse/partner, and intimate relationships are one of the most important social contexts in their daily lives. Expanding on previous research, we focused on contagion of positive and negative affect between older relationship partners, and examined whether processes of affect contagion were mediated by perceptions of partner affect, i.e., how individuals thought their partners felt at previous moments. We used data from an experience sampling study with 152 older heterosexual couples (304 participants; 65+ years old) who reported on their positive and negative affect, perceptions of their partner’s positive and negative affect, and presence or absence of partners 6 times a day for 14 days. Dyadic multilevel mediation models were used to evaluate our hypotheses. We observed strong evidence that processes of positive affect contagion between partners were mediated by perceptions of partner’s affective states. Negative affect contagion was directed from men to women, but not vice versa, and mediated by perceptions of partner’s affective states. Partner presence was unrelated to processes of affect contagion. Our findings help identify underlying mechanisms of affect contagion and support the notion that perceptions of close others’ emotions might shape our own feelings.

Panic Spreading Model with Different Emotions under Emergency

Emotion plays an important role in decision making. In an emergency, panic can spread among crowds through person-to-person communications and can cause harmful effects on society. The aim of this paper is to propose a new theoretical model in the context of epidemiology to describe the spread of panic under an emergency. First, according to divisions in personality in the context of psychology, groups are divided into a level-headed group and an impatient group. Second, individuals in the two groups have unique personalities. Thus, the level-headed group only infects within the group, while the impatient group considers emotional infection within the group and cross infection between the groups. Then, a nonlinear infection rate is used to describe the probability of infection after an infected person contacts a susceptible person, which is more in line with the real situation. After that, the level-headed group–impatient group nonlinear SIRS panic spreading model is developed. Stable analysis of the model is obtained using the Lyapunov function method to study the stability of the panic-free equilibrium and panic-permanence equilibrium. Finally, simulations are carried out to dynamically describe the spread process of group emotional contagion.

Affect contagion in daily life is mediated by perceptions of partner affect: An experience-sampling study with older couples.

Intimate relationship partners dynamically covary in their affective states. One mechanism through which intimate relationship partners experience and shape each other's affective states is affect contagion, that is, the spread of affective states from one person to another. Most studies on affect contagion in daily life focused on younger couples. Also, the degree to which social-cognitive processes are involved in everyday affect contagion remains unclear. Intimate relationships are one of the most important social contexts in older adults' daily lives. Expanding on previous research, we focused on affect contagion in older couples, and examined whether processes of affect contagion were mediated by perceptions of partner affect, that is, how individuals thought their partners felt at previous moments. We used data from an experience sampling study with 152 older heterosexual couples (304 participants; 65 + years old) who reported on their positive and negative affect, perceptions of their partner's positive and negative affect, and presence or absence of partners 6 times a day for 14 days. Dyadic multilevel mediation models were used to evaluate our hypotheses. We observed consistent evidence that processes of positive affect contagion between partners were mediated by perceptions of partner's affective states. Negative affect contagion was directed from men to women, but not vice versa, and mediated by perceptions of partner's affective states. Partner presence was unrelated to processes of affect contagion. Our findings support the notion that (perceptions of) close others' emotions shape our own feelings and identify partner perceptions as a mechanism of affect contagion. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Identification of cohesive subgroups in a university hall of residence during the COVID-19 pandemic using a social network analysis approach

The aims: (i) analyze connectivity between subgroups of university students, (ii) assess which bridges of relational contacts are essential for connecting or disconnecting subgroups and (iii) to explore the similarities between the attributes of the subgroup nodes in relation to the pandemic context. During the COVID-19 pandemic, young university students have experienced significant changes in their relationships, especially in the halls of residence. Previous research has shown the importance of relationship structure in contagion processes. However, there is a lack of studies in the university setting, where students live closely together. The case study methodology was applied to carry out a descriptive study. The participation consisted of 43 university students living in the same hall of residence. Social network analysis has been applied for data analysis. Factions and Girvan–Newman algorithms have been applied to detect the existing cohesive subgroups. The UCINET tool was used for the calculation of the SNA measure. A visualization of the global network will be carried out using Gephi software. After applying the Girvan–Newman and Factions, in both cases it was found that the best division into subgroups was the one that divided the network into 4 subgroups. There is high degree of cohesion within the subgroups and a low cohesion between them. The relationship between subgroup membership and gender was significant. The degree of COVID-19 infection is related to the degree of clustering between the students. College students form subgroups in their residence. Social network analysis facilitates an understanding of structural behavior during the pandemic. The study provides evidence on the importance of gender, race and the building where they live in creating network structures that favor, or not, contagion during a pandemic.

Double transitions and hysteresis in heterogeneous contagion processes.

In many real-world contagion phenomena, the number of contacts to spreading entities for adoption varies for different individuals. Therefore, we study a model of contagion dynamics with heterogeneous adoption thresholds. We derive mean-field equations for the fraction of adopted nodes and obtain phase diagrams in terms of the transmission probability and fraction of nodes requiring multiple contacts for adoption. We find a double phase transition exhibiting a continuous transition and a subsequent discontinuous jump in the fraction of adopted nodes because of the heterogeneity in adoption thresholds. Additionally, we observe hysteresis curves in the fraction of adopted nodes owing to adopted nodes in the densely connected core in a network.

Contagion of offensive speech online: An interactional analysis of political swearing

Despite their positive effects in promoting participatory politics, digital publics have also manifested an offensive vernacular culture. This study takes a social network analytic approach to explain the contagion of offensive speech in online discussion contexts. The study examines four social interactional mechanisms underlying a user's adoption of political swearing: generalized reciprocity, direct reciprocity, leader-mimicry, and peer-mimicry. The empirical context of this study is a highly popular online discussion forum in Hong Kong. The study examines the effects of social interactional mechanisms on the occurrences of political swearing by analyzing five years of user comments. Findings show that peer-mimicry contributes to the contagion process the most, followed by generalized reciprocity and direct mimicry. The study demonstrates how individual-level speech behaviors spiral into a collective norm that potentially hinders a healthy discussion culture in mediated social spaces.

Dose\u2013response functions and surrogate models for exploring social contagion in the Copenhagen Networks Study

Spreading dynamics and complex contagion processes on networks are important mechanisms underlying the emergence of critical transitions, tipping points and other non-linear phenomena in complex human and natural systems. Increasing amounts of temporal network data are now becoming available to study such spreading processes of behaviours, opinions, ideas, diseases and innovations to test hypotheses regarding their specific properties. To this end, we here present a methodology based on dose–response functions and hypothesis testing using surrogate data models that randomise most aspects of the empirical data while conserving certain structures relevant to contagion, group or homophily dynamics. We demonstrate this methodology for synthetic temporal network data of spreading processes generated by the adaptive voter model. Furthermore, we apply it to empirical temporal network data from the Copenhagen Networks Study. This data set provides a physically-close-contact network between several hundreds of university students participating in the study over the course of 3 months. We study the potential spreading dynamics of the health-related behaviour “regularly going to the fitness studio” on this network. Based on a hierarchy of surrogate data models, we find that our method neither provides significant evidence for an influence of a dose–response-type network spreading process in this data set, nor significant evidence for homophily. The empirical dynamics in exercise behaviour are likely better described by individual features such as the disposition towards the behaviour, and the persistence to maintain it, as well as external influences affecting the whole group, and the non-trivial network structure. The proposed methodology is generic and promising also for applications to other temporal network data sets and traits of interest.

On Credit Risk Contagion of Supply Chain Finance under COVID-19

Existing research on credit risk contagion of supply chain finance pays more attention to the influence of network internal structure on the process of risk contagion. The spread of COVID-19 has had a huge impact on the supply chain, with a large number of enterprises experiencing difficulties in operation, resulting in increased credit risks in supply chain finance. Under the impact of the epidemic, this paper explores the transmission speed and steady state of credit risk when the supply chain finance network is affected by external impact so that we can have a more complete understanding of the ability of supply chain finance to resist risks. The simulation results show that external shocks of different degrees will increase the number of initial infected enterprises and lead to the increase in credit risk contagion speed but have no significant impact on network steady state; the speed of credit risk contagion is positively correlated with network complexity but not significantly affected by network size; core enterprises infected will increase the rate of credit risk contagion. The intensity of policy intervention has obvious curative effect on the risk caused by external shock. When the supply chain financial network is affected by external shocks, the intensity, time, and pertinence of policy response can effectively prevent the credit risk contagion.

Obesity as an "infectious" disease

Introduction: Obesity has been recognized as a global epidemic by the WHO, followed by a wealth of empirical evidence supporting its contagiousness. However, the dynamics of the spread of obesity between individuals are rarely studied. A distinguishing feature of the obesity epidemic is that it is driven by a process of social contagion that cannot be perfectly described by the infectious disease model. There is also social discrimination in the obesity epidemic. Social discrimination against obese people plays quite different roles in two cases: on the one hand, when obesity cannot be eliminated, social discrimination can reduce the number of obese people; on the other hand, when obesity is eradicable, social discrimination can cause it to explode.(1) Materiał and methods: A literature analysis on obesity epidemic was carried out within the Pubmed, Google scholar and Research Gate platform. The following keywords were used in serach: obesity, epidemy, children, body max index. Purpose of the work: The aim of the following analysis is to present an obesity as an infectious disease. The steadily increasing percentage of obese people, including children, shows that there is an obesity epidemic. This is the phenomenon of social contagion, which partially explains the concept of homophily, which involves the grouping of people with similar characteristics. Potential explanations are also provided by sharing a living environment with similar access to certain foods and similar opportunities for physical activity, which defines the occurrence of analogous health habits

The Relationship Between Olfactory Function and Emotional Contagion

IntroductionResearch has provided evidence for the transfer of single emotions including anger, anxiety and happiness through olfactory chemosignals, yet no work has examined the role of odour function in the aggregation of more complex emotional states or in the emotional contagion process. The aim of the present study was to ascertain whether an individual’s tendency to experience emotional aggregation was affected by objective measures of their olfactory function and subjective self-assessments of the importance of their own olfactory system.MethodsIn this study (N = 70), participant pairs were first assessed individually for olfactory threshold and odour identification, then completed the Importance of Olfaction Questionnaire. Each pair subsequently took part in two collaborative tasks. Individual emotion measures were taken before, during and after the completion of the two tasks.ResultsMultilevel structural equation modelling revealed that individuals’ within-dyad positive emotional agreement scores were associated with both their ‘importance of olfaction’ scores and their olfactory function. A significant association was also found between olfactory performance and the Importance of Olfaction scores.ConclusionsThese results provide evidence that the subjective importance an individual assigns to their sense of smell can predict their susceptibility to experience emotional aggregation during active, collaborative tasks.ImplicationsThe findings suggest that individuals’ tendency and capability to detect and respond to emotional chemosignals, a process required for olfactory-facilitated emotional contagion, may be affected by individual differences in olfactory function and subjective attitudes toward olfaction.

A model of indirect contagion based on a news similarity network

AbstractOur objective is to model indirect contagion among companies. We use pieces of news about companies to measure the similarities between them. We assume that two companies are similar if we may associate a story about one company with the story about another company and vice-versa. First, after statistically eliminating arbitrary similarities between companies, we introduce a network based on the news similarities. Second, we evaluate a vector of stationary probabilities associated with the process of contagion that takes place in the network and we use these pieces of information to define the notion of centrality. Third, we use this vector of stationary probabilities to build an associated graph that reveals the most important paths of information contagion. Finally, we build a model of indirect contagion and evaluate the size of the information avalanches that take place in the similarity network.