Boundedly rational opinion dynamics in social networks: Does indegree matter?

Abstract

This paper investigates opinion dynamics and social influence in directed communication networks. We study the theoretical properties of a boundedly rational model of opinion formation in which individuals aggregate the information they receive from their neighbors by using weights that are a function of neighbors' indegree. We then present the results of a laboratory experiment explicitly designed to test the causal effect of indegree on social influence. We find that the social influence of an agent is positively affected by the number of individuals she listens to. When forming their opinions, agents take into account the structure of their communication network, although only to a limited extent.

Believe it or Not: Experimental Evidence on Sunspot Equilibria with Social Networks

“…In particular, some studies (Farrell, 1988;Cooper et al, 1992) have looked at coordination games, and at how the availability of communication devices allows nodes to reach efficient equilibria. Meanwhile, the literature on opinion formation has studied experimentally network games in which the only available communication device is the ability to observe one's neighbors' past actions (Corazzini et al, 2012;Battiston and Stanca, 2015). In this paper, we bridge the two streams by analyzing a game of coordination in which imitation can possibly affect choices.…”

“…The first is that, as observed by Corazzini et al (2012), subjects fail to account for repeated informationi.e., for the fact that their "second" neighbor in turn receives information from themselves. A complementary explanation is that, as observed by Battiston and Stanca (2015), subjects tend to attribute more importance to neighbors who are themselves better connected in the network. Whatever the case, central nodes seem to have a crucial role in pushing their group towards the adoption of the sunspot signal as a coordination device.…”

What Drives Sustainable Brand Awareness: Exploring the Cognitive Symmetry between Brand Strategy and Consumer Brand Knowledge

“…Degree centrality is generally measured by counting the number of links between the node and its neighbor individuals who are directly connected with each other. Degree centrality has also been widely used to describe an individual's importance in information diffusion in social networks or organizations [37][38][39]. Additionally, we measured the global centrality of a brand with its closeness centrality in the association network, since close centrality has long been used to indicate the ease of connection of a node to all other nodes or vice versa.…”

Conformity and Influence

“…The issues of conformity and influence arise in the social learning model of DeGroot (1974) and in the word-of-mouth communication of Ellison and Fudenberg (1995). The importance of network structure and individual behavior are further developed in such works as Golub and Jackson (2010), Acemoglu and Ozdaglar (2011), Acemoglu et al (2013), Corazzini et al (2012), Battiston and Stanca (2015), and Buechel et al (2015), where conformity and influence are the consequence of the social learning environment. Arifovic et al (2015) considers conformity as a motivator shaping beliefs and network formation in the context of social learning.…”