Cooperative generosity cascades through social networks and triples in effect.

Evidence

A recent study by political scientists James H. Fowler and Nicholas A. Christakis (2010) demonstrates that collaboration in social networks creates generosity that “cascades”; as people experience generous relationships they are more apt to offer such gifts to others in ever increasing networks. “The results [of the study] suggest that each additional contribution a subject makes to the public good in the first period is tripled over the course of the experiment by other subjects who are directly or indirectly influenced to contribute more as a consequence. — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education, 1764

Categorization

• CANDY: A single concrete, tweetable finding: every act of generosity gets tripled as it spreads through a network.
• XREF: Gives the ‘commons as blessing’ claim an empirical anchor, connecting the affective argument to network science. — connects to: Group cohesion grows from networked personal bonds, not mere shared categories — Scott Atran, The Devoted Actor: Unconditional…, 52; A catalytic idea can unlock dormant collective generosity in a community — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!: A Manifesto of the…, 431; Cachet diffuses along association chains but evaporates under lower-class adoption — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 212

Broader Connections

• Group cohesion grows from networked personal bonds, not mere shared categories #expands (0.78) — Scott Atran, The Devoted Actor, 52