Statistical physics modeling of social dynamics

in

In recent years it has become widely recognized that many large-scale phenomena observed in social systems are the “macroscopic” complex effect of the “microscopic” simple behavior of a large number of interacting agents. This has led social scientists to the introduction of elementary models of social behavior (cellular automata, agent-based models). Many of these models are somehow relatives of models that have been introduced in modern traditional statistical physics, and it is natural to approach them using the same concepts and tools that have been successfully applied in physics. For a general introduction to these models and the approach of statistical physicists to them, see the review article

  • C. Castellano, S. Fortunato, and V. Loreto

Statistical physics of social dynamics
Rev. Mod. Phys. (in press) (2007) [arXiv:0710.3256]

Here is a list of publications where results of the investigation of the behavior of these models has been reported.

  • D. Vilone and C. Castellano

Solution of voter model dynamics on annealed small-world networks
Phys. Rev. E 69, 016109 (2004). [arXiv:cond-mat/0308366]

 

  • C. Castellano, V. Loreto, A. Barrat, F. Cecconi and D. Parisi

Comparison of voter and Glauber ordering dynamics on networks
Phys. Rev. E 71, 066107 (2005). [arXiv:cond-mat/0501599]

 

  • C. Castellano

Effect of network topology on the ordering dynamics of voter models
AIP Conf. Proc. 779, 114 (2005). [arXiv:cond-mat/0504522]

 

  • C. Castellano and R. Pastor-Satorras

Zero temperature Glauber dynamics on complex networks
J. Stat. Mech. P05001 (2006). [arXiv:cond-mat/0602315]

 

  • L. Dall’Asta and C. Castellano

Effective surface-tension in the noise-reduced voter model
Europhys. Lett. 77, 60005 (2007). [arXiv:cond-mat/0612186]

 

  • L. Dall’Asta, C. Castellano and M. Marsili

Statistical physics of the Schelling model of segregation
J. Stat. Mech. L0700 (2008). [arXiv:0707.1681]