Effect of Changes in the Structure of a Social Network on Emotion Contagion

Agent-based support systems are used to help people with developing and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Interventions on the social network of an individual could play a role in achieving behaviour change. In this paper, a method for finding effective network interventions to influence specific individuals is proposed. The effect of these interventions was analysed by simulating the diffusion of emotional values about intentions and goals in a social network. Experiments showed that changing connections closer to the target have a larger influence than changing connections further from the target node. A comparison of the effect of the proposed interventions with all possible interventions showed that they are among the most optimal possible interventions. Finally, it was shown that nodes with fewer connections are easier to influence. The proposed interventions could form the basis for a support system that focus on affecting the social interaction between people in an online social network.