Abstract
We propose an opinion dynamics model based on Latané’s social impact theory. Actors in this model are heterogeneous and, in addition to opinions, are characterised by their varying levels of persuasion and support. The model is tested for two and three initial opinions randomly distributed among actors. We examine how the noise (randomness of behaviour) and the flow of information among actors affect the formation and spread of opinions. Our main research involves the process of opinion formation and finding phases of the system in terms of parameters describing noise and flow of the information for two and three opinions available in the system. The results show that opinion formation and spread are influenced by both (i) flow of information among actors (effective range of interactions among actors) and (ii) noise (randomness in adopting opinions). The noise not only leads to opinions disorder but also it promotes consensus under certain conditions. In disordered phase and when the exchange of information is spatially effectively limited, various faces of disorder are observed, including system states, where the signatures of self-organised criticality manifest themselves as scale-free probability distribution function of cluster sizes. Then increase of noise level leads system to disordered random state. The critical noise level above which histograms of opinion clusters’ sizes loose their scale-free character increases with increase of the easy of information flow.
Highlights
Understanding how opinions are formed and spread in society is very important in studying consumer behaviour, organisational behaviour, predicting election results, and many others
As pointed out by Acemoglu and Ozdaglar [1], we acquire our opinions and beliefs in the process of social learning, during which people get information and update their opinions as a result of their own experience, as well as observation of other people’s activities and from their experience. This process takes place in a social network consisting of friends, co-workers, family members and a certain group of leaders that we listen to and respect [1, 2]
Units update and create their views by communicating with other people who belong to their social network
Summary
Understanding how opinions are formed and spread in society is very important in studying consumer behaviour, organisational behaviour, predicting election results, and many others. This phenomenon is weaker in the case of K = 2 than K = 3 (see Fig 5) and, 6b and 6c (for α = 4 and T = 5; for α = 5, 6 and T = 4) it is not clearly visible, a decrease in the average largest cluster size hS max i, and an increase in the average number of clusters hnci and the average number of small clusters hnsi, is observed.
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