Gravity models are used in various social sciences

Social sciences

Social science is the field of study concerned with society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences usually exclusive of the administrative or managerial sciences...

 to predict and describe certain behaviors that mimic gravitational interaction as described in Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton

Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...

's law of gravity. Generally, the social science models contain some elements of mass

Mass

Mass can be defined as a quantitive measure of the resistance an object has to change in its velocity.In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:...

 and distance, which lends them to the metaphor of physical gravity.

Social science gravity models:

• Gravity model of trade
  Gravity model of trade
  The gravity model of trade in international economics, similar to other gravity models in social science, predicts bilateral trade flows based on the economic sizes of and distance between two units. The model was first used by Tinbergen in 1962...
  
  
• Trip distribution
• Gravity model of migration
  Gravity model of migration
  The gravity model of migration is a model in urban geography derived from Newton's law of gravity, and used to predict the degree of interaction between two places...
  
  
• Two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method
  Two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method
  The two-step floating catchment area method is a method for combining a number of related types of information into a single, immediately meaningful, index that allows comparisons to be made across different locations...