Tipping Points in Social Networks. Tipping Points in Social Networksby Brad Hunter It is midnight on a Wednesday night. I sit, staring complacently at my computer screen, as a pudgy three-dimensional animation of a baby points its finger in the air and wiggles its bottom in a circle. I find myself questioning what mighty coercive power has brought me to this point and I demand to know how it came to possess such power over me. Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Tipping Point, provides me some solace. This is not my fault. In the current Age of Information, each of us is embedded in myriad different networks that connect us to the world around us. The immensity, complexity, and variety of our networks certainly provide interesting areas for creative thought and speculation.
Social Epidemics Gladwell writes about epidemics, but not the viral sort we might expect. Tipping Points As the name of the book implies, tipping points are Gladwell's focus. The Three Laws The Law of the Few Connectors are the socialites. The Stickiness Factor. 2010Ambady_PsychInquiry.pdf. 2010Ambady_PsychInquiry.pdf. Teens These Days, Always Changing Their Gray Matter | Frontiers for Young Minds, Scientific American Blog Network. The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American. The human brain is built effective - and rewarding - interactions with others (Source: doi: 10.3389/frym.2013.00005) While we all may vary on just how much time we like spending with other people, humans are overall very social beings.
Scientists have already found this to be reflected in our health and well-being – with social isolation being associated with more depression, worse health, and a shorter life. Looking even deeper, they find evidence of our social nature reflected in the very structure of our brains. Just thinking through your daily interactions with your friends or siblings probably gives you dozens of examples of times when it was important to interpret or predict the feelings and behaviors of other people. Thinking of your own mind and the mind of a friend is much more similar than comparing thoughts with a stranger (Source: doi: 10.3389/frym.2013.00005) Sources: Images:
WeirdestPeople. Joshua Greene's Homepage.
PEER_stage2_10.1177%252F1368430206059881. You Are Less Beautiful Than You Think. In April 15, 2013 Dove launched a 3-minute video entitled “Dove Real Beauty Sketches.” The video achieved instant popularity and has been watched millions of times — a successful viral campaign which has been widely talked about. In the video, a small group of women are asked to describe their faces to a person whom they cannot see.
The person is a forensic artist who is there to draw pictures of the women based on their verbal descriptions. A curtain separates the artist and the women, and they never see each other. Before all this, each woman is asked to socialize with a stranger, who later separately describes the woman to the forensic artist. In the end, the women are shown the two drawings, one based on their own description, the other based on the stranger’s description. The idea is quite appealing. However, what Dove is suggesting is not actually true.
Epley and Whitchurch showed that people display this bias for themselves but not for strangers. Dove’s premise is wrong. Situationism.