Statistical physics of social dynamics

TLDR

Statistical physics offers a powerful framework for describing collective phenomena in social systems by linking individual interactions to emergent social dynamics. The review surveys topics such as opinion, cultural, and language dynamics, crowd behavior, hierarchy formation, human dynamics, and social spreading, and stresses the comparison of model results with empirical data.

Abstract

Statistical physics has proven to be a fruitful framework to describe phenomena outside the realm of traditional physics. Recent years have witnessed an attempt by physicists to study collective phenomena emerging from the interactions of individuals as elementary units in social structures. A wide list of topics are reviewed ranging from opinion and cultural and language dynamics to crowd behavior, hierarchy formation, human dynamics, and social spreading. The connections between these problems and other, more traditional, topics of statistical physics are highlighted. Comparison of model results with empirical data from social systems are also emphasized.