When open mindedness hinders consensus

Hendrik Schawe,Laura Hernández

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-64691-0

Hendrik Schawe, Laura Hernández

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-64691-0

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Abstract

We perform a detailed study of the Hegselmann-Krause bounded confidence opinion dynamics model with heterogeneousconfidence εi drawn from uniform distributions in different intervals [ε1, εu]. The phase diagram reveals a highly complex andnon-monotonous behaviour, with a re-entrant consensus phase in the region where fragmentation into multiple distinct opinionsis expected for the homogeneous case. A careful exploration of the phase diagram, along with an extensive finite-size analysis,allows us to identify the mechanism leading to this counter-intuitive behaviour. This systematic study over system sizes whichgo well beyond those of previous works, is enabled by an efficient algorithm presented in this article.

Highlights

We perform a detailed study of the Hegselmann-Krause bounded confidence opinion dynamics model with heterogeneousconfidence εi drawn from uniform distributions in different intervals [ε1, εu]
Opinion dynamics studies mainly dealt with the case of a fully mixed population, which means that every agent may potentially interact with any other in the population, in other words, the interactions among agents were supposed to be long range
We have performed a very detailed characterization of the phase diagram of the heterogeneous Hegselmann-Krause model by means of an efficient algorithm that allows the simulation of large samples

Summary

Introduction

We perform a detailed study of the Hegselmann-Krause bounded confidence opinion dynamics model with heterogeneousconfidence εi drawn from uniform distributions in different intervals [ε1, εu]. We present a systematic study of the phase diagram of the HK heterogeneous model in the parameter space given by the possible lower and upper bounds of the confidence values of the agents, (εl, εu).

Results

Conclusion