Bridge ties bind collective memories
Open accessAbstract
From families to nations, what binds individuals in social groups is, to a large degree, their shared beliefs, norms, and memories. These emergent outcomes are thought to occur because communication among individuals results in community-wide synchronization. Here, we use experimental manipulations in lab-created networks to investigate how the temporal dynamics of conversations shape the formation of collective memories. We show that when individuals that bridge between clusters (i.e., bridge ties) communicate early on in a series of networked interactions, the network reaches higher mnemonic convergence compared to when individuals first interact within clusters (i.e., cluster ties). This effect, we show, is due to the tradeoffs between initial information diversity and accumulated overlap over time. Our approach provides a framework to analyze and design interventions in social networks that optimize information sharing and diminish the likelihood of information bubbles and polarization.
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Communities composed of more interconnected subgroups converge faster on the same information if they interact soon after exposure to a public event, compared with communities of less interconnected subgroups.
“A burgeoning literature shows that communities composed of more interconnected subgroups converge faster on the same information if they interact soon after exposure to a public event, compared with communities of less interconnected subgroups (Momennejad et al., 2019).”
From Stories in Action. (2022) · cites this paper as Momennejad et al., 2019
The Introduction reports prior research finding greater memory convergence in networks whose clusters are more highly connected, and the Results find greater convergence when bridge ties converse first. But this study held network connectivity constant and compared conversation order, not more- versus less-interconnected communities; it measured the degree of convergence, not whether communities converged faster. The public-event example in the Introduction is illustrative rather than the event tested. (LLM, conf=0.87)
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- Authors
- Momennejad, I., Duker, A., & Coman, A.
- Affiliations
- Princeton University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Momennejad, Ida
- Coman, Alin
- Venue
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2019-04-05
- Volume
- 10
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1578-1578
- ISSN
- 2041-1723 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6451000
- OpenAlex
- W2934602793
- Cited by
- 45
- References
- 47
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 13 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 5
- FWCI
- 2.31
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Nature Communications (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (1748285)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Statistical and Nonlinear Physics › Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Statistical and Nonlinear Physics › Complex Network Analysis Techniques
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Memory, History, Trauma, Identity
- Keywords
- collective memory, social networks, information sharing, information bubbles, polarization, information diversity, network synchronization, social learning
- MeSH terms
- Communication, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Memory, Social Behavior, Information Dissemination, Social Networking
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