Opinion dynamics model based on the cognitive dissonance: An agent-based simulation

Abstract

In opinion dynamics, some agents may exhibit the cognitive dissonance behaviors owing to the contradictory belief, attitudes and opinions that they might confront with. This may greatly influence the evolutions of opinions and connections. To this end, this paper proposes an opinion dynamics model based on the cognitive dissonance (ODCD). In the ODCD model, with the consideration of bounded confidence effects, the methods for updating the opinions and network of agents are provided, respectively. Then, we design the simulation experiments with different initial opinion distributions to investigate the influences of bounded confidences and initial connection probabilities. Finally, we conduct a comparison analysis on the opinion dynamics with different initial opinion distributions.