It has been found in a variety of face-to-face networks that diffusion of information, behaviors and sentiments extend up to two to four degrees of distance from the original source. This regularity has been popularized as the three degrees of influence phenomenon. Prior works have suggested a number of possible explanations to this pattern. In this paper, we study it in the context of an onlin...

This paper presents a novel communication model to simulate various crowd behaviors such as riot. Our communication model is heavily based on the results from sociology research. Collective behaviors can emerge out of social processes such as emotion contagion and conformity effect among individual agents. The communication model has been implemented in our crowd simulation system, IMCrowd, in ...

Individuals’ pro-social behaviors are driven by altruistic and selfish motivations. In this paper we explore how the introduction of external incentives would influence one’s pro-social behavior both in the short term and in the long run. Using a large data set on Amazon product reviews, we design a quasiexperimental approach where we combine a propensity score matching (PSM) and a difference-i...

2135 Social influences are a primary factor in the adoption of health behaviors. Compliance with diet and nutrition programs, adherence to preventive screening recommendations, and maintenance of exercise routines all can depend on having contact with friends and family who also engage in these behaviors. In addition to a great deal of literature on peer effects, recent studies of large network...

Agents are considered "believable" when they are viewed by an audience as endowed with thoughts, desires, and emotions, typical of different personalities. The paper describes our work in progress aimed at reaiizing believable agents that perform helping behaviors influenced by their own personalities; the latter are represented as different clusters of prioritized goals and preferences over pl...

Building occupants perceive information about the surrounding environment and navigate for safety during emergency evacuation (egress). They often choose their actions by interacting with their social groups and observing the actions of the surrounding crowd. Most egress simulators, however, ignore individuals’ crowd perceptions and social interactions. This paper presents a novel platform, SAF...

PEER INTERACTION AND RELATIONSHIPS—AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW 573 Early North American Research 573 Post-World War II 574 INTERACTIONS, RELATIONSHIPS, AND GROUPS: ORDERS OF COMPLEXITY IN CHILDREN’S PEER EXPERIENCES 575 Interactions 576 Relationships 577 Groups 578 Culture 579 Summary 580 THEORIES RELEVANT TO THE STUDY OF CHILDREN’S PEER INTERACTIONS, RELATIONSHIPS, AND GROUPS 581 Personality Theori...

This paper examines the existence of social interactions in malaria preventive behaviors in Sub-Saharan Africa, that is, whether an individual's social environment has an influence on the individual's preventive behaviors. We focus on the two population groups which are the most vulnerable to malaria (children under 5 years and pregnant women) and on two preventive behaviors (sleeping under a b...