Seeking Equilibrium Leads to Chaos: Multiple Equilibria Regulation Model

Ioannis D Katerelos () and Andreas G. Koulouris ()

Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 2004, vol. 7, issue 2, 4

Abstract: In this paper, we shall present a model of opinion dynamics called Multiple Equilibria Regulation (MER) Model which, concerning social equilibrium, is based on the Bounded Confidence (BC) Model’s procedures and, it takes under consideration an agents’ internal (“intra-individual†) regulation structure among different opinions regarding the same social issue. First, we give a detailed description of the model and define its parameters. Then, we explore this nonlinear model by a series of computer simulations for a variety of parameter’ values. Next, we examine under what conditions the model exhibits sensitive dependence on initial conditions and, finally, we calculate the Lyapunov Exponents and the Information Entropy. Our results show that for certain parameter’ values, the system exhibits sensitivity of final state to initial state, thus it is chaotic (deterministic and unpredictable). Hence, by combining two psychosocial principles that both tend to certainty (stability) we obtain an uncertainty (unpredictability) concerning the outcome of the system.

Keywords: Opinion dynamics; social; intra-individual; equilibrium; sensitivity to initial conditions; unpredictability; transient chaos (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004-03-31
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