Damon Centola

Damon M. Centola

Assistant Professor

Behavioral and Policy Sciences (BPS)

 

My work addresses theoretical and empirical problems in the diffusion of collective behavior. My core sociological interest is how individual actions aggregate to produce (often unexpected) collective outcomes. This includes the mobilization of social movements, the self-organization of ethnic communities and cultural enclaves, the spread of health behaviors (such as vaccination, dieting, and condom use), and the coordination of collective beliefs (such as religious extremism and social sanctioning practices). Before coming to M.I.T., I was a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy at Harvard University, and had been a visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution, the Santa Fe Institute, the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, and the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies.

 

 

Papers

Norms and Collective Action

Networks

 

Working Groups

Economic Sociology Seminar

Social Dynamics Seminar

 

News

Press on Homophily in Social Networks

Press on Complex Contagions