22. Wide Bridge
We’re doing a series on the book “Linked: How Everything is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life” by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi.
WARNING: If you want to comment on any of these articles, please read the previous articles to understand the foundation.
The previous article showed how Dr. Damon Centola wrote a book three years ago showing Dr. Barabasi’s book Linked could be improved by recognizing behavior change doesn’t spread the same way as information. In fact, Dr. Centola said the approach we have been covering “...can go seriously wrong, leading to costly errors…” when it comes to affecting the behavior of others.
Remember, the focus of this section is proving the ultimate cause of everyone’s issue is choosing Hubs who use them, because people don't understand Fitness. I recognized this as well as four additional ways to go beyond the book Linked, so I also wrote to Dr. Centola and I’m still waiting to hear a response.
The issue is Weak Ties are excellent for spreading information, but they fail when it comes to Behavior Change. Dr. Centola sees a different mechanism for “How Behavior Spreads”:
“While simple contagions spread most effectively when bridges are long, complex contagions depend on bridges that are wide. The width of a bridge between two neighborhoods is defined as the number of overlapping ties between them.”
Bridge Width: the number of overlapping Ties between two Clusters
Take a look at the graphic.
The upper Network is made of a blue Cluster doing a certain desirable behavior (e.g., social justice) and a green Cluster not participating in the desirable behavior.
If behavior changed with information, the green Cluster would become blue.
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However, the graphic in the last article proved having the right information doesn’t change our behavior.
The “N” on the green Node shows its behavior didn’t change after interacting with the blue Node. This bridge between the green and blue Node denoted by the dotted arrow is a “Narrow Bridge”.
The lower Network is the same, however, there is an additional green Node that is connected to two blue Nodes. The “Y” on the upper green Node shows its behavior will change after interacting with the two blue Nodes. The two dotted arrows form a “Wide Bridge”.
Notice, the lower green Node with the “N” still wouldn’t change its behavior. However, once the green Node with the “Y” becomes blue, there is a Wide Bridge to the green Node with the “N” and its behavior will change.
Why does it take a Wide Bridge to change behavior?
Dr. Centola can’t explain why. All he can do is document that it does. Does he and Dr. Barabasi want to know why?
I can explain why, but that will have to wait until the next section.
For the rest of this section, we will continue proving the root cause of all our issues.
Next Article: 23. Nodes or Links?