Social contagion and homophily within romantic network

This paper presents an agent based simulation model which attempts to show how the diffusion of a cultural-trait can be affected by an uneven distribution of influence-capacity among individuals. For the sake of concretion the model represents a population of teenagers who attempt to find a romantic relationship looking for a partner within their friendship ties. Partner choice is ruled by a homophilic principle (agents look for someone who is similar to them in a given socio-cultural trait, given a certain range of tolerance to difference). It is shown how the assignment of an especial weight on partner's influence can affect the contagion process, even if the number of romantic relationships represents a small fraction of the total number of links