Lattices in Social Networks with Influence

Abstract

We present an application of lattice theory to the framework of influence in social networks. The contribution of the paper is not to derive new results, but to synthesize our existing results on lattices and influence. We consider a two-action model of influence in a social network in which agents have to make their yes–no decision on a certain issue. Every agent is preliminarily inclined to say either "yes" or "no", but due to influence by others, the agent's decision may be different from his original inclination. We discuss the relation between two central concepts of this model: Influence function and follower function. The structure of the set of all influence functions that lead to a given follower function appears to be a distributive lattice. We also consider a dynamic model of influence based on aggregation functions and present a general analysis of convergence in the model. Possible terminal classes to which the process of influence may converge are terminal states (the consensus states and nontrivial states), cyclic terminal classes and unions of Boolean lattices.