Towards understanding what contributes to forming an opinion

Peng Wang, Jia Song (), Jie Huo, Rui Hao and Xu-Ming Wang
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Peng Wang: School of Physics and Electronic-Electrical Engineering, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China2Ningxia Key Laboratory of Intelligent Sensing for Desert Information, Yinchuan 750021, China
Jia Song: School of Physics and Electronic-Electrical Engineering, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China
Jie Huo: School of Physics and Electronic-Electrical Engineering, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China2Ningxia Key Laboratory of Intelligent Sensing for Desert Information, Yinchuan 750021, China
Rui Hao: School of Physics and Electronic-Electrical Engineering, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China2Ningxia Key Laboratory of Intelligent Sensing for Desert Information, Yinchuan 750021, China
Xu-Ming Wang: School of Physics and Electronic-Electrical Engineering, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China2Ningxia Key Laboratory of Intelligent Sensing for Desert Information, Yinchuan 750021, China

International Journal of Modern Physics C (IJMPC), 2017, vol. 28, issue 11, 1-16

Abstract: Opinion evolution mechanism can be captured by physical modeling. In this paper, a kinetic equation is established by defining a generalized displacement(cognitive level), a driving force and the related factors such as generalized potential, information quantity and attitude. It has been shown that the details of opinion evolution depend on the type of the driving force, self-dominated driving or environment-dominated driving. In the former case, the participants can have their attitudes changed in the process of competition between the self-driving force and environment-driving force. In the latter case, all of the participants are pulled by the environment. Some regularities behind the dynamics of opinion are also revealed, for instance, the information entropy decays with time in a special way, etc. The results may help us to get some deep understanding for the formation of a public opinion.

Keywords: Cognitive level; self-driving force; environment-driving force; information quantity; attitude (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1142/S0129183117501352

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