Mixed preferential attachment model: Homophily and minorities in social networks

Chen Avin, Hadassa Daltrophe, Barbara Keller, Zvi Lotker, Claire Mathieu, David Peleg and Yvonne-Anne Pignolet

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2020, vol. 555, issue C

Abstract: Individuals in social networks tend to exhibit homophily in their social ties, namely, they prefer bonding with others of the same social group (e.g., the same nationality, gender, socio-economic background, etc.). To formalize this phenomenon in the context of an evolving social network, we consider a mixed preferential attachment (MPA), bi-populated, network model. In this model each of the two social groups has a certain level of bias applied by its members toward other group members, ranging form homophily (affinity toward the same) to heterophily (affinity toward the different). Thus, the MPA model supports the following three simple and well-accepted observations on human behavior related to forming networks: (i) the “rich get richer” mechanism, (ii) heterogeneity and a resulting minority–majority partition, and (iii) selection bias between groups.

Keywords: Homophily; Preferential attachment; Social networks; Power law; Minority–majority (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437120303617
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:555:y:2020:i:c:s0378437120303617

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2020.124723

Access Statistics for this article

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications is currently edited by K. A. Dawson, J. O. Indekeu, H.E. Stanley and C. Tsallis

More articles in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().