Extremism, segregation and oscillatory states in a novel model of opinion dynamics. #

Beth M Stokes, Samuel E Jackson, Philip Garnett, Jingxi Luo

11:50 Tuesday in 3Q16.

Part of the Collective behaviour and transport session.

Abstract #

Using mathematics to model the evolution of opinions among interacting agents is a rich and growing field. In this talk, I will present a novel agent-based model that enhances the explanatory power of existing theoretical frameworks, corroborates experimental findings in social psychology, and reflects observed phenomena in contemporary society. A key aspect of the model’s novelty lies in a memory-dependent measure of pairwise affinity, and it is found that if interactions are severed whenever the affinity falls below some threshold, segregated opinion clusters tend to emerge. Clusters are found to undergo ‘opinion drift’ under certain conditions, leading to collective extremisation of the population. Oscillatory clusters are proven to exist and verified numerically. By carefully interpreting these results, we can posit explanations of socio-psychological phenomena such as emergent cooperation and group polarisation.