An energy-like indicator to assess opinion resilience

Authored by Sylvie Huet, Guillaume Deffuant, Jean-Denis Mathias

Date Published: 2017

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2016.12.035

Sponsors: French National Research Agency (ANR)

Platforms: No platforms listed

Model Documentation: Other Narrative Mathematical description

Model Code URLs: Model code not found

Abstract

Using the bounded-confidence model, with fixed uncertainties and extremists, we investigate how resilient the moderate mean opinion of a population is to the arrival in it of a new group of agents, when the energy of the opinion of this group (extremeness x group size) is varied. We say moderate mean opinion is resilient when, even though it may become temporarily more extreme after the arrival of the new agents, it later recovers its moderate value. We show that such resilience is displayed up to a threshold value of the equivalent energy of the group. We also show that when the agent-based model spontaneously converges to a single extreme, then this energy threshold is nil. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Tags

Dynamics Opinion dynamics resilience Model Bc model Tipping energy