title: The social contagion hypothesis: comment on 'Social contagion theory: examining dynamic social networks and human behavior'.
abstract: I reflect on the statistical methods of the Christakis-Fowler studies on network-based contagion of traits by checking the sensitivity of these kinds of results to various alternate specifications and generative mechanisms. Despite the honest efforts of all involved, I remain pessimistic about establishing whether binary health outcomes or product adoptions are contagious if the evidence comes from simultaneously observed data.
authors: Department of Statistics, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, U.S.A. acthomas@stat.cmu.edu
authors: A C
authors: AC
authors: Thomas
mesh_terms: D001519:Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008960:Models, Psychological; D012944:Social Support