The Hadza, who live primitively in Tanzania, have social networks similar to modern ones. People prefer the company of those with attitudes similar to their own, a study finds. Originally published on January 25, 2012.
HOW people collaborate, in the face of numerous temptations to cheat, is an important field of psychological and economic research. A lot of this research focuses on the “tit-for-tat” theory of co-operation: that humans are disposed, when dealing with another person, to behave in a generous manner until that other person shows himself not to be generous. At this point co-operation is withdrawn. Fool me once, in other words, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Originally published on November 19, 2011.
Professor of Sociology Nicholas A. Christakis, a graduate of both Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School, takes the time to sit down with FM. Originally published on October 20, 2011.
Exploring the weblike structures that underlie everything from friendship to cellular behavior. Originally published on May 1, 2011.
Our ideas, our emotions, our politics, our sex lives – even our weight and life spans – invisibly guided by network effects. Now it’s on Facebook, and in the streets of Egypt and beyond. Originally published on February 23, 2011.
When historians look back to the moment when the post-Cold War reign of American power ended, they may well settle on 2010 as a crucial year. Everywhere, it seemed, there were signs that the long-predicted “rise of the rest” had finally occurred, whether in the newfound assertiveness of fast-growing China or the impatient diplomacy of new powers like Brazil and Turkey. Foreign Policy‘s second annual list of the Top 100 Global Thinkers fully reflects that new world. Originally published on November 23, 2010.
The flu season is just around the corner. Sorry, but it's true. Even though H1N1 isn't creating the panic it did last year, any sensible person wants to do whatever they can to know about any outbreak and avoid it if at all possible. Some new research may provide assistance in the effort to detect a potential epidemic before it spreads. Originally published on September 20, 2010.
IS your social network making you fat? Are your friends and family influencing you to smoke and drink more, or to sleep less?And if our relationships contribute to behaviors that erode our health, can social networks be harnessed to improve it? These are seminal questions in “network science” — an emerging field that examines how behavioral changes spread through social networks. By social networks, I don’t mean virtual, will-you-“friend”-me? simulations, but old-fashioned, flesh-and-blood relationships. You know, people you actually see in person regularly — friends, relatives, co-workers, neighbors. Originally published on September 18, 2010.
If you want to know when you'll catch the flu, just look at your friends. Researchers who tracked flu symptoms in the friends of a group of college students during the 2009 H1N1 "swine flu" pandemic predicted the flu outbreak in the general college population with at least 2 weeks' advance notice. Originally published on September 15, 2010.
The old folk concept that our personal health behaviors rub off on those around us has received a staggering amount of scientific support of late. Over the last few years, study after study has shown that weight gain, drug and alcohol use, even loneliness and depression aren't islands unto themselves but are powerfully contagious — capable of spreading within our social networks just as germs scatter after a sneeze. Originally published on September 13, 2010.