Related papers: Phase transitions in social sciences: two-populati…

We study the dynamics of a spin-flip model with a mean field interaction. The system is non reversible, spacially inhomogeneous, and it is designed to model social interactions. We obtain the limiting behavior of the empirical averages in…

Many real systems comprised of a large number of interacting components, as for instance neural networks , may exhibit collective periodic behavior even though single components have no natural tendency to behave periodically. Macroscopic…

We introduce a simple model of opinion dynamics in which binary-state agents evolve due to the influence of agents in a local neighborhood. In a single update step, a fixed-size group is defined and all agents in the group adopt the state…

A statistical theory of the mean field is developed. It is based on the proposition that the mean field can be obtained as an energy average. Moreover, it is assumed that the matrix elements of the residual interaction, obtained after the…

Simple elastic models of spin-crossover compounds are known empirically to exhibit classical critical behavior. We demonstrate how the long-ranged interactions responsible for this behavior arise naturally upon integrating out mechanical…

A cellular automaton model is presented for random walkers with biologically motivated interactions favoring local alignment and leading to collective motion or swarming behavior. The degree of alignment is controlled by a sensitivity…

We develop a statistical theory of the mean field. It is based on the proposition that the mean field can be obtained as an energy average. Moreover, it is assumed that the matrix elements of the residual interaction are random with the…

Phase transitions are emergent phenomena where microscopic interactions drive a disordered system into a collectively ordered phase. Near the boundary between two phases, the system can exhibit critical, scale-invariant behavior. Here, we…

We introduce an analytical model for population dynamics with intra-specific competition, mutation and assortative mating as basic ingredients. The set of equations that describes the time evolution of population size in a mean-field…

We introduce a general modeling framework to predict the outcomes, at the population level, of individual psychology and behavior. The framework prescribes that researchers build a cost function that embodies knowledge of what trait values…

The statistical properties of pairwise majority voting over S alternatives is analyzed in an infinite random population. We first compute the probability that the majority is transitive (i.e. that if it prefers A to B to C, then it prefers…

The aim of this work is to implement a statistical mechanics theory of social interaction, generalizing econometric discrete choice models. A class of simple mean field discrete models is introduced and discussed both from the theoretical…

We show that the Minority Game, a model of interacting heterogeneous agents, can be described as a spin systems and it displays a phase transition between a symmetric phase and a symmetry broken phase where the games outcome is predicable.…

Critical transitions, or large changes in the state of a system after a small change in the system's external conditions or parameters, commonly occur in a wide variety of disciplines, from the biological and social sciences to physics.…

Psychological disorders like major depressive disorder can be seen as complex dynamical systems. By looking at symptom activation patterns, we can investigate the dynamic behaviour of individuals to see whether or not they are at risk for…

We consider a simple model of interacting agents asked to choose between "yes" and "not" to some given question. The agents are described in terms of spin variables, and they interact according to a mean field Heisenberg model. We discuss…

Swarming patterns that emerge from the interaction of many mobile agents are a subject of great interest in fields ranging from biology to physics and robotics. In some application areas, multiple swarms effectively interact and collide,…

Human mobility and activity patterns mediate contagion on many levels, including the spatial spread of infectious diseases, diffusion of rumors, and emergence of consensus. These patterns however are often dominated by specific locations…

A new approach to the understanding of sociological collective behaviour, based on the framework of critical phenomena in physics, is presented. The first step consists of constructing a simple mean-behaviour model and applying it to a…

We present a mean field model for the phase diagram of a community of micro-organisms, interacting through their metabolism so that they are, in effect, engaging in a cooperative social game. We show that as a function of the concentration…