Network structured kinetic models of social interactions
- The aim of this paper is to study the derivation of appropriate meso- and macroscopic
models for interactions as appearing in social processes. There are two main characteristics
the models take into account, namely a network structure of interactions, which we treat
by an appropriate mesoscopic description, and a different role of interacting agents. The
latter differs from interactions treated in classical statistical mechanics in the sense that
the agents do not have symmetric roles, but there is rather an active and a passive agent.
We will demonstrate how a certain form of kinetic equations can be obtained to describe
such interactions at a mesoscopic level and moreover obtain macroscopic models from
monokinetics solutions of those.
The derivation naturally leads to systems of nonlocal reaction-diffusion equations (or
in a suitable limit local versions thereof), which can explain spatial phase separation
phenomena found to emerge from the microscopic interactions. We will highlight the
approach in three examples, namely the evolution and coarsening of dialects in human
language, the construction of social norms, and the spread of an epidemic.