Minority Opinion Research Articles

THE NO REFLECTIVE LOSS PRINCIPLE IS NOT AN OLD-FASHIONED CORPORATE LAW RELIC

Abstract Shareholders are not allowed to bring actions for damages due to a fall in share value or loss of dividend, which are “reflective” of their company’s loss. Later, this principle also found its application to “reflective” losses of employees and creditors. The Supreme Court, however, in Marex Financial v Sevilleja, unanimously held that the principle would apply only to shareholders and not to creditors. The article argues that, while the majority opinion in the Marex decision is reasonably balanced, the minority opinion went a step further by even doubting the very existence of the no reflective loss principle without properly appreciating what shareholding entails. If the minority’s position becomes the law, it will jeopardise companies’ existence as separate legal entities with the capacity to decide with respect to their assets. Further, if the protection of the principle is removed, companies’ counterparties will have to worry constantly about facing numerous direct shareholders’ actions, whether they settle the dispute with the company or not. As a result, if the minority view becomes the law, it can potentially make the company a less dependable commercial partner.

Conspiracy beliefs and majority influence

ABSTRACT Conspiracy beliefs (i.e. beliefs in specific conspiracy theories or the more general conspiracy mentality) are associated with a need for uniqueness and lower adherence to social norms. These findings suggest that conspiracy beliefs might be generally associated with less influence by majority opinions – absolutely and compared to minority opinions. In five experiments involving scenarios unrelated to conspiracy theories (overall N = 1669), participants were informed about the majority/minority opinion on a given issue (e.g. the building of a tunnel), afterward indicating their evaluation or voting intentions regarding the issue. We then tested whether the influence of a majority/minority opinion on evaluation or voting intentions is moderated by conspiracy beliefs. Across studies, we find no significant moderation. A meta-analysis confirms no correlation between conspiracy beliefs and susceptibility to majority influence. Taken together, our studies provide no evidence for the assumption that those holding conspiracy beliefs reject majority opinions per se.

The Intersection of Documentary Film and Public Discourse: A Case Study of Making a Murderer and O.J.: Made in America

This paper explores the impact of documentaries, particularly Making a Murderer and O.J.: Made in America, on public perception of the U.S. justice system and their role in stimulating discussions on legal reform. By employing the Spiral of Silence theory, the study examines how these documentaries shape public discourse by reinforcing or suppressing different judicial viewpoints, thus influencing public opinion and potential policy changes. Through case studies of Steven Avery and O.J. Simpson, the documentaries highlight systemic flaws, media biases, and the complex interplay between race, celebrity, and justice. The paper also discusses the limitations of the Spiral of Silence theory in the modern media landscape, where social media offers platforms for minority opinions, challenging traditional media s dominance in shaping public opinion.

The adaptive consensus reaching process with the ER-PSO interaction mechanism and its application in public charging stations evaluation

BackgroundPublic charging stations (PCSs) have become integral public infrastructure in China, responding to the considerable and rapidly growing demand. Evaluating the service quality of PCSs by a diverse user base has become essential for the effective management of PCSs. ObjectivesIn the group evaluation of PCSs' service quality, which encompasses broad public interests, consensus reaching process (CRP) is commonly utilized to manage group conflicts and achieve evaluation consensus. The intricate interactions among decision makers (DMs) significantly influence the evolution and resilience of collective viewpoints. Against this backdrop, this research aims to develop an adaptive CRP to enhance the discriminatory power of group consensus and improve consensus robustness in the presence of non-cooperative behavior. MethodologyWith the above objectives, this study proposes an adaptive CRP supported by a novel interaction mechanism, consisting of two stages: (1) In the interaction network generation stage, based on the Erdős-Rényi (ER) random network model, innovative interaction signals are generated to guide the generation of an ER-based interaction network, enhancing the dissemination of dominant viewpoints, and constraining the influence of minority opinions. (2) In the decision opinion interaction stage, based on the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm, utilizing novel dual individual fitness functions, the PSO algorithm is employed to formulate the expected updated belief, driving the internal evolution and convergence of opinions. The proposed adaptive CRP is implemented in the group evaluation of PCSs' service quality in Nanjing. FindingsComparative analysis reveals that the proposed CRP offers significant advantages in consensus efficiency, the discriminatory power of group consensus, and consensus robustness in the presence of non-cooperative behavior compared to existing CRPs. NoveltyDiffering from previous CRP research primarily focuses on minimizing adjustment scales, this study emphasizes the adaptive evolution and convergence of opinions, providing a more suitable description of group opinion dynamics. Additionally, from a methodological perspective, this research utilizes the ER network model and the PSO algorithm to support the adaptive CRP at both structural and preference levels, enhancing consensus discriminatory power and robustness.

Conversational Agent Dynamics with Minority Opinion and Cognitive Conflict in Small‐Group Decision‐Making

AbstractThis study investigated the impact of group discussions with text‐based conversational agents on risk‐taking decision‐making, which has been under‐researched. We also focused on the influence of opinion patterns presented by the agents during discussions and attitudes toward these agents. Through an online experiment, 430 participants read a decision‐seeking scenario and expressed the degree of risk they were willing to take. After viewing the text‐based opinions of six agents and having a discussion with the agents, participants expressed the degree of risk they were willing to take for the same scenario. The result showed that participants' risk‐taking decisions shifted toward the agents' group opinions, regardless of whether the agents' opinions tended to be risky or cautious. Additionally, when the agents' group opinions were more risk‐biased and included a minority opinion, a significant association existed between the degree of the participants' shift to a riskier decision and their positive attitudes toward the agents. The agents' group opinions guided participants toward both risky and cautious decisions, and participants' attitudes toward the agents were associated with their decision‐making, albeit to a limited extent.

To post or not to Post: How minority opinion and posting frequency impact online review posting

Consumers are often exposed to prior reviews when considering posting themselves. We examine how finding one’s opinion in the minority (vs. majority) of previous ratings affects a consumer’s decision to post. Specifically, we contrast the posting decisions of frequent posters with those of less frequent posters. Results from seven experimental studies show that frequent posters prefer review environments in which their opinion belongs to the minority of previously posted ratings. We support these findings with additional evidence from secondary review data. This behavior sets them apart from infrequent posters, who are reluctant to share minority opinions. In addition, we show that this effect is driven by differences in how a minority post is perceived: As an opportunity to signal one’s reviewer identity or as socially risky. Based on these insights, we explore how rating platforms can motivate review posting, particularly among infrequent posters. Our findings extend previous research on social influence effects in online reviews and have implications for various stakeholders who rely on and aim to solicit reviews on rating platforms.

Interactive dynamic trust network for consensus reaching in social network analysis based large-scale decision making

With the advances in social media and e-democracy technologies, large-scale decision making (LSDM) problems with trust relationships demands effective consensus-reaching processes. Existing literature has identified a need for improvement in the updating method of trust relationships and the recommendation-feedback mechanism, while the overall effect of trust relationships on consensus reaching remains unexplored and not quantitatively examined. This study proposes a novel interactive dynamic trust-lead consensus reaching process (IDT-CRP) based model to address these challenges. The model integrates a dynamic Trust network updating (DTNU) process and a trust-lead and efficiency-driven recommendation-feedback (TERF) process. In the DTNU process, secondary trust is defined to represent the trust derived from decision makers’ modification behaviors in each iteration. In the TERF process, a novel trust-lead and efficiency-driven recommendation-feedback mechanism is proposed, in which two different decision scenarios are provided. Furthermore, the role of trust relationships in enhancing group consensus level is analyzed, revealing its significant impact while identifying an upper limit. Novelties of this paper include 1) the improved trust updating algorithm which derived secondary trust from modification behaviors instead of opinion similarities; 2) the improved recommendation-feedback mechanism with different trust utilization scenarios while retaining minority opinions; 3) the novel IDT-CRP model based on the interactive mechanism between trust relationship and opinion evolution. A series of experiments are implemented, validating that the proposed model is of good feasibility, effectiveness and robustness, and can be applied in future LSDM research.

Tale of two emergent games: Opinion dynamics in dynamical directed networks.

Unidirectional social interactions are ubiquitous in real social networks whereas undirected interactions are intensively studied. We establish a voter model in a dynamical directed network. We analytically obtain the degree distribution of the evolving network at any given time. Furthermore, we find that the average degree is captured by an emergent game. However, we find that the fate of opinions is captured by another emergent game. Beyond expectation, the two emergent games are typically different due to the unidirectionality of the evolving networks. The Nash equilibrium analysis of the two games facilitates us to give the criterion under which the minority opinion with few disciples initially takes over the population eventually for in-group bias. Our work fosters the understanding of opinion dynamics ranging from methodology to research content.

Impacts of an expert’s opinion on the collective performance of a competing population for limited resources

The dissemination of information and opinion to the public has never been easier due to the easy access to platforms, making it necessary to study the responses to public information by a competing population. We study the impact of an expert’s opinion on the performance of a population including some die-hard fans of the expert and cautious agents who will adapt to trust or to ignore the expert’s opinion, within the framework of the minority game (MG). The expert collects information by probing a subpopulation for its minority opinion without the knowledge of its composition. When the information is not disseminated, the expert’s opinion has a higher accuracy than the intrinsic success rate of the population. When the information is disseminated, the population could enhance its success rate by making use of the wasted winning quotas through the actions of the fans and the adaptive ability of the cautious agents, as long as the fraction of the fans is not too big to turn the expert’s opinion into the losing option. There exists an optimal fraction of followers, the fans plus those cautious agents adapted to trust the expert, for the population to be the most harmonious with the highest success rate allowed by MG. The phenomena observed by numerical simulations motivated us to develop a theory, using the intrinsic success rate SrI, a quantity related to how the expert collects his information, and the average adapted level of trust f¯ among the cautious agents as inputs. The theory gives excellent agreement with simulation results, even when an approximated form of f¯ is invoked. The work paves the way for studying and formulating theories for the dissemination of other forms of information and opinion.

Violation of the Code of Ethics for Constitutional Judges in the Constitutional Court's Decision on Requirements for Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates

As a country based on legal principles, Indonesia has a responsibility to respect and prioritize the principles of the rule of law, including independence and the absence of partiality in the judicial system. The level of success in implementing this principle can be measured by the extent to which the judiciary is independent in carrying it out to realize justice based on the law. However, the power of the Constitutional Court (MK) cannot be avoided from criticism and evaluation. For example, a Constitutional Court decision attracted public attention regarding the requirements for presidential and vice presidential candidates. Therefore, this article discusses the impact of the controversy that emerged after the decision of the Constitutional Court (MK) in Case Number 90/PUU-XXI/2023 on January 4 2023. This decision, which includes the cancellation of part of Law Number 7 of 2017, has raised various criticisms and doubts about the independence of the Constitutional Court. By focusing on the role of Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court Anwar Usman in minority opinions, this article analyzes the examination carried out by the Honorary Council of Constitutional Court Judges (MKMK) regarding alleged ethical violations. The implications for the credibility of the Constitutional Court as a democratic oversight institution are a major concern in this context.

Comparing the Election Systems for Overseas Constituency Representatives in Multiple Countries

Although electoral systems are a traditional focus in political science, limited research exists on the characteristics of overseas constituency representation. This study aims to quantitatively elucidate these characteristics through a comparative analysis of the election systems in eight countries. This study analyzes overseas constituency representative systems while focusing on key factors such as the number of eligible voters, seats, voter turnout, and representativeness (value of a single vote). Voter turnout in overseas districts varies significantly among these countries. Notably, Croatia and Romania exhibit exceptionally high voter turnouts in overseas districts. Common characteristics in high-turnout countries include a higher representativeness in overseas districts than the home country and a small proportion of overseas voters in the total electorate. This dynamic incentivizes overseas voters to participate in elections to reflect their minority opinions in national politics. Furthermore, it potentially leads to a higher voter turnout in overseas districts than in the home country.

Ordering dynamics of nonlinear voter models.

We study the ordering dynamics of nonlinear voter models with multiple states, also providing a discussion of the two-state model. The rate with which an individual adopts an opinion scales as the qth power of the number of the individual's neighbors in that state. For q>1 the dynamics favor the opinion held by the most agents. The ordering to consensus is driven by deterministic drift, and noise plays only a minor role. For q<1 the dynamics favors minority opinions, and for multistate models the ordering proceeds through a noise-driven succession of metastable states. Unlike linear multistate systems, the nonlinear model cannot be reduced to an effective two-state model. We find that the average density of active interfaces in the model with multiple opinion states does not show a single exponential decay in time for q<1, again at variance with the linear model. This highlights the special character of the conventional (linear) voter model, in which deterministic drift is absent. As part of our analysis, we develop a pair approximation for the multistate model on graphs, valid for any positive real value of q, improving on previous approximations for nonlinear two-state voter models.

Effects of Gender, Education, Income, Social Rank, Financial Stress, and Shame on Beliefs About the Autonomy of One’s Opinions and Their Expression

Abstract Individuals’ beliefs about their opinion-related tendencies should interest public opinion researchers for at least two reasons. First, these beliefs could influence opinion-related behaviors. Second, they are likely to indicate tendencies that transcend specific situations and pertain to a wide range of subjects for which opinions can be held. This study investigates the associations of demographic characteristics, material and social resources, and subjective experiences with the belief that one tends to develop independent opinions (i.e., opinion autonomy) and expresses one’s minority opinions (i.e., expressed autonomy). Effects are estimated through analyses of three waves of data collected from a sample of the U.S. adult population. Education, age, community rank, financial stress, and shame are revealed to have effects of similar magnitude on expressed autonomy and opinion autonomy. Gender is the only variable investigated associated with only one form of autonomy—expressed autonomy. The findings are interpreted through the lenses of identity and affect control theories. Processes related to maintaining authenticity, perceived self-worthiness, and confidence in oneself as an independent thinker and agent are theorized as underlying the results.

“God Is One” or “the One Is God” in Hellenistic Jewish and Greco-Roman Theology

Abstract “God is one” is the theological foundation of many of the world’s religions. The Greek version of this expression, heis theos, was especially significant to ancient religious development. Past scholarship has tended to place its emergence early, among the sixth century BCE Presocratic philosophers. In this article, I argue that the expression “God is one” in Greek likely develops later, in Jewish writings of the Hellenistic period. My work supports a minority opinion in the scholarship that attributions in second century Christian apologetics of this expression to Presocratics such as Xenophanes should not be relied upon. Rather, I suggest that the expression heis theos emerged in the context of second to first century BCE Alexandrian Jewish theology in conversation with ideas from Greek philosophy.

Meigs syndrome after treatment for catamenial pneumothorax

In the field of thoracic surgery, catamenial pneumothorax (CP) is known as a disease peculiar to women, but it is rare among female pneumothoraces and is rarely encountered in clinical practice. Meigs syndrome (MS) is another female-specific disease, defined as a benign ovarian tumor with pleural and ascites effusions, but it is rare and the details of the pathogenesis of MS have not yet been elucidated.A 40-year-old Japanese woman came in with dyspnea. Chest radiography revealed a collapsed right lung. She underwent video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery, which revealed multiple diaphragmatic foramens. She was therefore diagnosed with CP. Later, when she was 50-year-old, returned with chest pain. Computed tomography of the chest and abdomen showed right massive pleural effusion and a large tumor and ascites in the pelvis. This condition was suggestive of MS. The patient underwent bilateral oophorectomy, and the right pleural effusion and ascites resolved promptly after surgery.In conclusion, both menstrual-associated CP and MS are very rare conditions, and to the best of our knowledge, there are no reported cases of the combination of the two. However, it is possible that some MS patients may have MS without CP, and the present case is considered to be valuable because a small diaphragmatic foramen was identified via thoracoscopy, which has been a minority opinion among the mechanisms of pleural effusion in MS.

Credibility-Supervised Dynamic Clustering and Consensus Model Involving Minority Opinions Handling in Social-Network Large-Scale Decision Making

Existing studies on social-network large-scale decision making (SN-LSDM) have overlooked two vital roles of the information credibility of decision makers (DMs): 1) Information credibility directly determines the reliability of clustering results and final decision output; 2) Consideration of minority opinions may hold the truth but may also be risky, while the credibility analysis of minority opinions can help avoid risks. To this end, this paper proposes credibility-supervised dynamic clustering and consensus model involving minority opinion processing. Firstly, DMs' information is analyzed and preprocessed to obtain DMs' credibility evaluation. Subsequently, DMs' credibility is used as one of the clustering criteria to supervise and guide the trust relationships and the clustering of large-scale group, which assists in deriving the reliable clustering result. This clustering is dynamic because the clustering result may alter as the DMs' information changes in consensus. Afterwards, an SN-LSDM consensus model with minority opinions settlement is developed. A credibility-based mechanism for identification, DMs' discussion and weight adjustment of minority opinion subgroup is constructed, including it trust risk measurement method and trust risk level-based weight adjustment. Then, a risk index is defined in feedback adjustment mechanism to adjust DMs' information, and a decision plan with a higher consensus level is obtained. Finally, the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed model are verified through the case study of “916” Lu County earthquake relief. Discussions and comparisons are conducted by simulation experiments to explore the capabilities and advantages of our proposal.

A fair consensus adjustment mechanism for large-scale group decision making in term of Gini coefficient

With social media and e-democracy development, decision-making environments and problems have become increasingly complex. Traditional group decision-making, including a small number of decision makers, cannot deal with many practical decision-making problems. Large-scale group decision-making has received extensive attention as an efficient measure to address this issue. This paper proposes a two-stage optimization consensus mechanism for large-scale group decision-making by the Gini coefficient, which considers both the consensus among decision makers’ opinions and the fairness of consensus adjustment. First, we introduce an improved density peak clustering method to cluster decision makers into subgroups that can avoid different clustering centers being too close. Then, we define the subgroups' weights by the silhouette coefficient, the subgroup judgment distance, and their sizes. Respecting the importance of minority opinions, we design a new method to identify and adjust the weights of the minority opinions, which considers more aspects than previous ones. Further, we use the Gini coefficient to measure the equity of consensus adjustment of the group and subgroup. Moreover, we present a two-stage Gini coefficient-based consensus mechanism to obtain the adjusted consensus individual decision matrices, which can ensure the minimization and fairness of consensus adjustment and allocation under the set constraints. Based on these results, we give a new large-scale group decision-making method. Notably, it is the first method that fully considers the opinions of minor subgroups and the fairness of allocation results. These characteristics are essential in decision-making problems such as resource allocation and urban public construction. Finally, we show the utility and validity of the new method through a case study and make the comparative analysis from numerical and principle aspects.

On the concept of delusions: Global trends and psychopathology in Japan.

The present article spotlights challenging conceptual and epistemological issues regarding delusions. A research history of various approaches to delusions in Europe, the United States, and Japan reveals the difficulty of defining delusions. Facing these difficulties, the standard concept of delusions has become thinner than the traditional ones, making its boundary with minority opinions vaguer. Nevertheless, clinical typology and epistemological approaches are contributing to the continuous conceptual refinement of delusions. Both standpoints validate and promote each other in elaborating the characteristics of delusions and their boundaries with non-delusions. In addition, epistemological inquiries into delusions shed new light on the extraordinarily difficult problems in the relationship among belief, knowledge, certainty, and delusions, contributing to epistemology in general. These approaches to delusions promote the evolution of the concept of delusions and related epistemological inquiries.

백제 기벌포 위치비정에 관하여

Gibulpo was the first battleground and the last decisive battleground of the Three Kingdoms Unification War in the 7th century. Gibulpo has a deep historical significance. Gibulpo is widely known as Seocheon, Chungcheongnam-do. However, there are many minority opinions that it is not Seocheon, Chungcheongnam-do. There are a total of five historical events that took place in Gibulpo. The names of Gibulpo are recorded differently in the historical records.&#x0D; First, in 660 Baekje recorded it as a place that must be blocked to defend the country at a defense strategy meeting to defend the country. It is also recorded as a Baekgang. Second, it is recorded as Woongjingang-gu or Woongjin-gu as an area that landed when Sojeongbang of the Tang Dynasty invaded Baekje. Third, during the Baekje Revival War in 661, the place where Dochim, the supreme commander of the Revival Army, blocked Tang and Silla County was called Woongjingang-gu. Fourth, in 663, the place where the Japanese and Baekje allied forces fought in the sea with the Tang navy was Baekgang-gu. Fifth, in 676, Silla and the Tang Dynasty fought a naval battle at Gibulpo, Soburiju.&#x0D; Gibeolpo, which Baekje's adults and Heungsu told them to stop, was the same place as Woongjingang-gu, where Sojeongbang landed. And it was Woongjingang-gu, where Dochim tried to stop Tang and Silla. In addition, Soburiju Gibeolpo, where Silla and Tang fought in 676, was the same area.&#x0D; They were compared and analyzed militarily and literature to determine the location of Gibulpo. As a result of comparing and analyzing these events individually, four places were identified as the same place. As a result of the identification, the location of Gibulpo Port has been known to the estuary of the Geumgang River so far, and it has been confirmed to be the middle and upper reaches of the Geumgang River.&#x0D; Specifically, it was identified as Bulamsan Mountain and Dochisan Mountain in Seongdong-myeon, Nonsan-si from Godajin, Sedo-myeon, Buyeo-gun. However, the war zone in Baekgang-gu in 663 was found to be the estuary of the Geumgang River and the upper and lower reaches, so further research will be conducted.

A Large-Scale Group Decision-Making Approach to Assess Water Resource Sustainability with Double-Level Linguistic Preference Relation

With the rapid development of science and technology and the continuous progress of society, water resource sustainability has attracted much attention. The assessment process of water resource sustainability has become a hot topic. Because professional models cannot ensure the accuracy of evaluation results, expert judgment techniques are used to perform the assessment process. Meanwhile, to eliminate the biases and consider people’s cognitive processes in complex decision making, this study utilizes a large group of experts to evaluate the sustainability of water resources, which is called a large-scale group water resource sustainability assessment (LGWRSA). This study proposes the double-level linguistic preference relation (DLLPR) to enable experts to present more reasonable and intuitive linguistic opinions. Based on the DLLPR, this study presents a clustering method, a weighting method, and a comprehensive adjustment factor determination method. To prevent minority opinions and non-cooperative behaviors from interfering with the decision-making process and to make the decision-making process develop in an accurate and objective direction, a consensus model is developed to modify minority opinions and suggestions and manage non-cooperative behaviors. After a sufficient number of experts reach a consensus through the method proposed in this article, a more accurate evaluation result can be obtained. Finally, an actual LGWRSA problem is established to derive water resource sustainability expectations for four provinces, which validates the effectiveness of the proposed method. A comparative analysis is performed to illustrate the benefits of these methods and present their shortcomings.