Modeling individual's infectiousness and susceptibility in social contagion

Social contagion represents the spread of information or entities among people through social networks. Modeling social contagion is critical to the understanding of epidemics, viral marketing, and online opinions. Previous research usually focuses on the role of social networks in this process and assumes a unified spreading rate across individuals. This research considers the heterogeneity of inter-person influence (spreading rate) based on individual's infectiousness and susceptibility. Built upon a fundamental SI (Susceptible-Infected) model, we derive the infection probability function and individual's offspring number on random networks. We also discuss the implication in social contagion. This research supports developing strategies to control social contagion process at a finer decision granularity in terms of infectiousness and susceptibility.