Impact of varied friendships and influence weights on opinion dynamics

Abstract

Opinions, representing individual thoughts and attitudes, are ubiquitous in societal interactions. The present study investigates the influence of diverse friendships and varying degrees of interpersonal impact on opinion dynamics. Considering that the nature of interactions among friends is contingent upon their level of intimacy, we categorize friendships into three distinct classifications: fixed friend relations (strong links), non-fixed unidirectional friend relations, and non-fixed bidirectional friend relations (both denoting weak links). Employing numerical simulations on both synthetic and real-world networks, our results indicate that individuals exhibiting higher forgetting rates, diminished social interaction intensities, and reduced influence strengths are more inclined to establish cohesive opinions. Inversely, attaining consensus within an actual social network necessitates augmented forgetting rates, curtailed social interaction intensities, and decreased inter-individual influence.