Some people create fashions, establish trends, impose styles. And everyone else follows. Kind of like the atoms in a magnetic field.
Here is the peculiar discovery of two French scientists.
What regulates the imitative attitudes typical of fashions or the sudden changes of behaviour observable in a large audience? According to French scientists Quentin Michard and Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, these phenomena are governed by a law quite similar to the one that regulates the physical phenomenon of magnetism.
Are we all copycats?
To explain this unique theory, the two researchers have focused their attention on some easily observable trends, such as the collapse of births in Europe at the end of the 20th century or the rapid spread of mobile phones in the 1990s. In these cases, everyone not only manifests a preference, but to a certain extent it tends to imitate others.
Magnetic influences.
This behaviour can be explained by borrowing some concepts from the physics of magnets. The charges of the atoms undergoing a magnetic field, finally orient themselves in the same direction. More often the charges of an atom push those of the neighbouring atom, influencing its position. A slow and progressive shift of the magnetic field also generates a sudden and disorderly inversion in the position of the charges.
You buy, I buy.
In the sociological version of this model, atoms represent people and electric charges their behaviour. In the case of mobile phones, for example, it is clear that their spread has increased together with price decrease. But the explosion of this phenomenon has been proclaimed by the intensity which people have influenced and imitated each other with. The magnetic model states that the stronger the tendency to imitate others, the more unexpected mutations in behaviour will be and characterized by consistent discontinuities. The changing opinions rate accelerates mathematically and unpredictably, increasing as the population under examination approaches the point of maximum change. In practice, the more people buy a certain model of jacket, the more all the others will be pushed to do the same. A tour through the streets of downtown will confirm the veracity of the Michard and Bouchaud model.
Here is the peculiar discovery of two French scientists.
What regulates the imitative attitudes typical of fashions or the sudden changes of behaviour observable in a large audience? According to French scientists Quentin Michard and Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, these phenomena are governed by a law quite similar to the one that regulates the physical phenomenon of magnetism.
Are we all copycats?
To explain this unique theory, the two researchers have focused their attention on some easily observable trends, such as the collapse of births in Europe at the end of the 20th century or the rapid spread of mobile phones in the 1990s. In these cases, everyone not only manifests a preference, but to a certain extent it tends to imitate others.
Magnetic influences.
This behaviour can be explained by borrowing some concepts from the physics of magnets. The charges of the atoms undergoing a magnetic field, finally orient themselves in the same direction. More often the charges of an atom push those of the neighbouring atom, influencing its position. A slow and progressive shift of the magnetic field also generates a sudden and disorderly inversion in the position of the charges.
You buy, I buy.
In the sociological version of this model, atoms represent people and electric charges their behaviour. In the case of mobile phones, for example, it is clear that their spread has increased together with price decrease. But the explosion of this phenomenon has been proclaimed by the intensity which people have influenced and imitated each other with. The magnetic model states that the stronger the tendency to imitate others, the more unexpected mutations in behaviour will be and characterized by consistent discontinuities. The changing opinions rate accelerates mathematically and unpredictably, increasing as the population under examination approaches the point of maximum change. In practice, the more people buy a certain model of jacket, the more all the others will be pushed to do the same. A tour through the streets of downtown will confirm the veracity of the Michard and Bouchaud model.
(Fonte: Article from Focus magazine )