Abstract

We apply an agent-based opinion dynamics model to investigate the distribution of opinions and the size of opinion clusters. We use parameter sweeps to examine the sensitivity of opinion distributions and cluster sizes relative to changes in individuals’ tolerance and uncertainty. Our results demonstrate that opinion distributions and cluster sizes are structurally unstable, not stationary, and have fat tails in most configurations of the model, rather than stable Gaussian distributions. Hence, extremist radical individuals occur far more frequently than “normally” expected. Opinion clusters, in addition to being fat-tailed, reveal a dynamic transition from lognormal to exponential distributions as parameters change.

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