48093 20250619084222.0 doi 10.1038/srep19767 sideral 93669 ART-2016-93669 eng Gómez-Gardeñes, J. Universidad de Zaragoza (orcid)0000-0001-5204-1937 Explosive Contagion in Networks 2016 Access copy available to the general public Unrestricted The spread of social phenomena such as behaviors, ideas or products is an ubiquitous but remarkably complex phenomenon. A successful avenue to study the spread of social phenomena relies on epidemic models by establishing analogies between the transmission of social phenomena and infectious diseases. Such models typically assume simple social interactions restricted to pairs of individuals; effects of the context are often neglected. Here we show that local synergistic effects associated with acquaintances of pairs of individuals can have striking consequences on the spread of social phenomena at large scales. The most interesting predictions are found for a scenario in which the contagion ability of a spreader decreases with the number of ignorant individuals surrounding the target ignorant. This mechanism mimics ubiquitous situations in which the willingness of individuals to adopt a new product depends not only on the intrinsic value of the product but also on whether his acquaintances will adopt this product or not. In these situations, we show that the typically smooth (second order) transitions towards large social contagion become explosive (first order). The proposed synergistic mechanisms therefore explain why ideas, rumours or products can suddenly and sometimes unexpectedly catch on. info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/DGA/FENOL-GROUP info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/FP7/317532/EU/Foundational Research on MULTIlevel comPLEX networks and systems/MULTIPLEX info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/FP7/317614/EU/Mathematical framework for multiplex networks/PLEXMATH info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MINECO/FIS2011-25167 info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MINECO/FIS2012-38266-C02-01 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess by http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ 4.259 2016 MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCES 10 / 63 = 0.159 2016 Q1 T1 1.691 2016 Multidisciplinary 2016 Q1 info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion Lotero, L. Taraskin, S.N. Pérez-Reche, F.J. 2003 395 Universidad de Zaragoza Dpto. Física Materia Condensa. Área Física Materia Condensada 6 (2016), 19767 [9 pp] Sci. rep. (Nat. Publ. Group) Scientific reports (Nature Publishing Group) 2045-2322 830215 http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/48093/files/texto_completo.pdf Versión publicada 117704 http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/48093/files/texto_completo.jpg?subformat=icon icon Versión publicada oai:zaguan.unizar.es:48093 articulos driver 2025-06-19-08:41:23 ARTICLE