The Impact of Herding Tendency in Modular Networks on the Diffusion of Internet Investment Products

Abstract

In this paper, we aim to study the impact of the shift in herding tendency on the diffusion of internet investment products in modular social networks. The epidemic spreading mechanism is applied and numerical analyses are conducted. The results suggest that the increase in herding tendency slows down the diffusion process and postpones the outbreak time of the diffusion, but such negative effects can be compromised when the independent acceptance willingness is high. When independent acceptance willingness is low, the limited extent of the herding tendency increases the diffusion scope. In addition, the expansion of the propagation lifetime or the increase of the clustering coefficient increases the threshold so that the herding tendency has an effect on outbreak size. Further, the growth of the herding propensity tends to magnify the positive influence of the clustering coefficient and the negative effect of the modularity.