Conformity, Anticonformity and Polarization of Opinions: Insights from a Mathematical Model of Opinion Dynamics

Krueger, Tyll; Szwabiński, Janusz; Weron, Tomasz

doi:10.3390/e19070371

Cited by 50 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 74 publications

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“…Physicists extensively study various phase transitions it exhibits [6,[11][12][13][14][15][16] whereas psychologists focus on its connections with models of social responses [17][18][19][20][21]. Moreover, the q-voter dynamics serves frequently as a starting point for other models of social processes, including polarization of opinions [22,23], diffusion of innovations [19,24,25], or group formations [26][27][28]. The review structure is as follows.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Statistical Physics Of Opinion Formation: Is it a SPOOF?

Jędrzejewski

Sznajd-Weron

2019

Comptes Rendus. Physique

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We present a short review based on the nonlinear q-voter model about problems and methods raised within statistical physics of opinion formation (SPOOF). We describe relations between models of opinion formation, developed by physicists, and theoretical models of social response, known in social psychology. We draw attention to issues that are interesting for social psychologists and physicists. We show examples of studies directly inspired by social psychology like: "independence vs. anticonformity" or "personality vs. situation". We summarize the results that have been already obtained and point out what else can be done, also with respect to other models in SPOOF. Finally, we demonstrate several analytical methods useful in SPOOF, such as the concept of effective force and potential, Landau's approach to phase transitions, or mean-field and pair approximations.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Statistical Physics Of Opinion Formation: Is it a SPOOF?

Jędrzejewski

Sznajd-Weron

2019

Comptes Rendus. Physique

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“…In this work, we propose to introduce memory into opinion dynamics in yet another way inspired by a paper on random walkers with extreme value memory [22]. We will study the q-voter model, which has occurred to be particularly interesting from theoretical and applicative point of view [12,[23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33]. We will focus on the q-voter model with independence, introduced in [34].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of memory on opinion dynamics

Jędrzejewski

Sznajd-Weron

2018

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications

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We investigate an agent-based model of opinion dynamics with two types of social response: conformity and independence. Conformity is introduced to the model analogously as in the Sznajd model or q-voter model, which means that only unanimous group exerts peer pressure on individuals. The novelty, in relation to previous versions of the q-voter model, is memory possessed by each agent and external noise T , which plays the role of social temperature. Each agent has its own memories of past experiences related to the social costs and benefits of being independent or conformist. If an agent was awarded in past more for being independent, it will have a greater tendency to be independent than conformist and vice versa. We will show that depending on the social temperature T the system spontaneously organizes into one of two regimes. Below a certain critical social temperature T c , all agents in the society acquire personal traits (so called person state). Some of them become permanent conformists and others start to behave forever independently. This means that initially homogeneous population becomes heterogeneous, and agents respond differently to social influence. For T > T c , all agents with equal probabilities behave independently or conform to peer pressure (so called situation state). This regime change between person and situation state, which reminds the idea of an annealed vs. quenched disorder, affects also public opinion. Particularly interesting results are obtained for individualistic societies, in which public opinion is non-monotonic function of T , which means that there is an optimal social temperature for which an agreement in the society is the highest.

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“…Note that within this approach, each agent can be either conformist or independent in different time steps, so the way of agents' acting may change during simulation. This corresponds to the so-called situation-oriented approach in which the social response of agents is determined by situational factors and is not connected with their personal traits [27][28][29]. Another, competitive approach called person-oriented, which will not be considered here, assumes that it is our personality that dominates over the situation.…”

Section: #1mentioning

confidence: 99%

Think then act or act then think?

et al. 2018

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We introduce a new agent-based model of opinion dynamics in which binary opinions of each agent can be measured and described regarding both pre- and post-influence at both of two levels, public and private, vis-à-vis the influence source. The model combines ideas introduced within the q-voter model with noise, proposed by physicists, with the descriptive, four-dimensional model of social response, formulated by social psychologists. We investigate two versions of the same model that differ only by the updating order: an opinion on the public level is updated before an opinion on the private level or vice versa. We show how the results on the macroscopic scale depend on this order. The main finding of this paper is that both models produce the same outcome if one looks only at such a macroscopic variable as the total number of the individuals with positive opinions. However, if also the level of internal harmony (viz., dissonance) is measured, then significant, qualitative differences are seen between these two versions of the model. All results were obtained simultaneously within Monte Carlo simulations and analytical calculations. We discuss the importance of our studies and findings from three points of view: the theory of phase transitions, agent-based modeling of social systems, and social psychology.

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Conformity, Anticonformity and Polarization of Opinions: Insights from a Mathematical Model of Opinion Dynamics

Cited by 50 publications

References 74 publications

Statistical Physics Of Opinion Formation: Is it a SPOOF?

Statistical Physics Of Opinion Formation: Is it a SPOOF?

Impact of memory on opinion dynamics

Think then act or act then think?

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