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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 21: Networks, From Topology to Dynamics (joint session SOE/BP/DY)

BP 21.7: Vortrag

Mittwoch, 19. März 2025, 16:45–17:00, H45

Influence, Incidence, Imitators and Individualists: Comparing social influence models of protective behavior in an epidemic — •Andreas Reitenbach — Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany

To manage a pandemic, it is critical that citizens voluntarily engage in protective behavior (e.g. masking or vaccinating). Voluntary behavior is subject to complex dynamics of social influence, however. While various models couple social influence dynamics with disease spreading, assumptions about how individuals influence each other differ markedly. Models assuming herding implement that agents imitate their peers. On the contrary, rational agents (individualists) engage in protective behavior when their peers are not and vice versa, potentially free-riding on others’ contributions to herd immunity.

Here, I study whether and why these competing behavior models translate into different disease dynamics. Following a recent call to abstract from psychological mechanisms underlying social influence, I translate the behavior theories into influence-response functions.

I find that individualists self-coordinate on a moderate level of protection and experience long-lasting but flat incidence curves. Herding, in contrast can result in rapid cycling through waves of high incidence and strong collective efforts to mitigate. Whether herders or individualists navigate an epidemic better can depend on the population’s hospital capacity and disease parameters.

Keywords: Coupled models; of respiratory diseases; and protective behavior dynamics; using influence-response functions; to describe social influence