An energy-like indicator to assess opinion resilience

Jean-Denis Mathias, Sylvie Huet and Guillaume Deffuant

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2017, vol. 473, issue C, 501-510

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 × 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.

Keywords: BC model; Opinion dynamics; Resilience; Tipping energy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437116310135
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:473:y:2017:i:c:p:501-510

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2016.12.035

Access Statistics for this article

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications is currently edited by K. A. Dawson, J. O. Indekeu, H.E. Stanley and C. Tsallis

More articles in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().