We used a Bayesian methodology to test models for starting and stopping clapping. Such sigmoidal growth and decay resemble the pattern of infection typically seen in the spread of diseases, both empirically and in epidemiology models, supporting the possibility of social contagion in clapping. For the starting and stopping proportions, the shaded area represents the interquartile range, illustrating the variation across experiments.īoth the onset and the cessation of clapping follow a sigmoidal curve, with an initially slow uptake of the new behaviour followed by a phase of rapid change and eventual saturation ( figure 1).
The plot shows the median proportion of individuals in the audience who have started clapping (black line), stopped clapping (red line) and are currently clapping (green line), aggregated over the 12 experimental presentations. Although, as with any other statistical method, we cannot conclusively rule out the influence of unobserved confounding variables, our approach allows us to accurately select which of the observed cues are the most probable cause of the social contagion and avoid identifying spurious but statistically significant correlations to confounding variables when multiple observed cues are correlated with each other.Įxperimental results. This type of datum allows us to apply a Bayesian model selection approach to determine the dynamics of how social cues spread through group members. In an applause setting, each clap produced by an individual provides us with a time point at which he or she remains ‘infected’ by appreciation, and cessation of clapping denotes ‘recovery’. Here, we quantify the role of social contagion in the start and stopping of applause. One natural group setting, where it is relatively easy to quantify collective behaviour of humans is in audience applause, where previous studies have empirically investigated the emergence of self-organized rhythmical patterns. However, human social dynamics remain notoriously difficult to quantify and new methods are required to identify which cues people are responding to. Recent work has begun to quantify social contagion in, for example, joining of social networks and gaze following. For example, does the probability of social infection increase in proportion to the number already infected, as it does in most models of disease epidemics? Or is there a tipping point at which infection takes off? Do fashions die out because they have been around for too long or is there a socially mediated ‘recovery’? Are local neighbours or the proportion of the total population who are infected most important in spreading ideas? In general, these assumptions have not been tested experimentally, leaving several key empirical questions unanswered about how humans respond to each other. Each social contagion model has its own set of assumptions about how individuals are ‘infected’ by others. Mathematical models of social contagion have been suggested for everything from pop songs and fashion to divorce and suicide. The social contagion model arising from our analysis predicts that the time the audience spends clapping can vary considerably, even in the absence of any differences in the quality of the presentations they have heard.
We also found consistent differences between individuals in their willingness to start and stop clapping. The cessation of applause is similarly socially mediated, but is to a lesser degree controlled by the reluctance of individuals to clap too many times. Individuals' probability of starting clapping increased in proportion to the number of other audience members already ‘infected’ by this social contagion, regardless of their spatial proximity. We used Bayesian model selection to test between various hypotheses about the spread of a simple social behaviour, applause after an academic presentation. A number of mathematical models have been hypothesized to describe these social contagion phenomena, but these models remain largely untested against empirical data. Within a group, a new behaviour can emerge first in a few individuals before it spreads rapidly to all other members. The study of social identity and crowd psychology looks at how and why individual people change their behaviour in response to others.
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