Anonymous social influence

Manuel Förster (), Michel Grabisch and Agnieszka Rusinowska
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Manuel Förster: Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France; Université catholique de Louvain, CORE, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Manuel Foerster

No 2013028, LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE from Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE)

Abstract: We study a stochastic model of influence where agents have “yes” or “no” inclinations on some issue, and opinions may change due to mutual influence among the agents. Each agent independently aggregates the opinions of the other agents and possibly herself. We study influence processes modelled by ordered weighted averaging operators, which are anonymous: they only depend on how many agents share an opinion. For instance, this allows to study situations where the influence process is based on majorities, which are not covered by the classical approach of weighted averaging aggregation. We find a necessary and sufficient condition for convergence to consensus and characterize outcomes where the society ends up polarized. Our results can also be used to understand more general situations, where ordered weighted averaging operators are only used to some extend. We provide an analysis of the speed of convergence and the possible outcomes of the process. Furthermore, we apply our results to fuzzy linguistic quantifiers, i.e., expressions like “most” or “at least a few”.

Keywords: influence; anonymity; ordered weighted averaging operator; convergence; consensus; speed of convergence; fuzzy linguistic quantifier (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C7 D7 D85 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-07-04
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (47)

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https://sites.uclouvain.be/core/publications/coredp/coredp2013.html (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Anonymous social influence (2013)
Working Paper: Anonymous Social Influence (2013)
Working Paper: Anonymous social influence (2013)
Working Paper: Anonymous Social Influence (2013)
Working Paper: Anonymous social influence (2013)
Working Paper: Anonymous social influence (2013)
Working Paper: Anonymous social influence (2013)
Working Paper: Ordered Weighted Averaging in Social Networks (2012)
Working Paper: Ordered Weighted Averaging in Social Networks (2012)
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