Evidence map›Paper›PMID 38649461›Full record

ArticleNature human behaviour2024

Long ties accelerate noisy threshold-based contagions.

Dean Eckles, Elchanan Mossel, M Amin Rahimian, Subhabrata Sen

Abstract read
PubMed Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Nature human behaviour, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
4citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

4 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Diffusion of complex contagions is shaped by a trade-off between reach and reinforcement.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025
    Article
  2. The Strength of Long-Distance Ties for Aging Healthy With HIV: The Case of Rural South Africa.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2025
    Article
  3. Article
  4. Long ties, disruptive life events, and economic prosperity.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Dean EcklesSloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA. eckles@mit.edu.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8439-442X
Elchanan MosselDepartment of Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
M Amin RahimianDepartment of Industrial Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. rahimian@pitt.edu.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9384-1041
Subhabrata SenDepartment of Statistics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.

Funding

NSF | Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering | Division of Computer and Network Systems (CNS) SaTC-2318844NSF | Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering | Division of Computing and Communication Foundations (CCF) 1665252NSF | Directorate for Mathematical & Physical Sciences | Division of Mathematical Sciences (DMS) CAREER 2239234NSF | Directorate for Mathematical & Physical Sciences | Division of Mathematical Sciences (DMS) DMS-1737944United States Department of Defense | United States Air Force | AFMC | Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AF Office of Scientific Research) FA9950-23-1-0429United States Department of Defense | United States Navy | Office of Naval Research (ONR) N00014-17-1-2598United States Department of Defense | United States Navy | Office of Naval Research (ONR) N00014-23-1-2489
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

In widely used models of biological contagion, interventions that randomly rewire edges (generally making them 'longer') accelerate spread. However, recent work has argued that highly clustered, rather than random, networks facilitate the spread of threshold-based contagions, such as those motivated by myopic best response for adoption of new innovations, norms and products in games of strategic complement. Here we show that minor modifications to this model reverse this result, thereby harmonizing qualitative facts about how network structure affects contagion. We analyse the rate of spread over circular lattices with rewired edges and show that having a small probability of adoption below the threshold probability is enough to ensure that random rewiring accelerates the spread of a noisy threshold-based contagion. This conclusion is verified in simulations of empirical networks and remains valid with partial but frequent enough rewiring and when adoption decisions are reversible but infrequently so, as well as in high-dimensional lattice structures.

Indexed as

Models, TheoreticalHumans

Identifiers

PMID38649461

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.