scholarly journals Modeling Confirmation Bias and Peer Pressure in Opinion Dynamics

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Longzhao Liu ◽  
Xin Wang ◽  
Xuyang Chen ◽  
Shaoting Tang ◽  
Zhiming Zheng
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Confirmation Bias ◽  
Opinion Dynamics ◽  
Peer Pressure ◽  
Homogeneous Population ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Collective Decisions ◽  
Personal Opinion ◽  
The Impact

Confirmation bias and peer pressure are regarded as the main psychology origins of personal opinion adjustment. Each show substantial impacts on the formation of collective decisions. Nevertheless, few attempts have been made to study how the interplay between these two mechanisms affects public opinion evolution on large-scale social networks. In this paper, we propose an agent-based model of opinion dynamics which incorporates the conjugate effect of confirmation bias (characterized by the population identity scope and initiative adaptation speed) and peer pressure (described by a susceptibility threshold and passive adaptation speed). First, a counterintuitive non-monotonous phenomenon arises in the homogeneous population: the number of opinion clusters first increases and then decreases to one as the population identity scope becomes larger. We then consider heterogeneous populations where “impressionable” individuals with large susceptibility to peer pressure and “confident” individuals with small susceptibility coexist. We find that even a small fraction of impressionable individuals could help eliminate public polarization when population identity scope is relatively large. In particular, the impact of impressionable agents would be greater if these agents are hubs. More intriguingly, while impressionable individuals have randomly distributed initial opinions, most of them would finally evolve to moderates. We highlight the emergence of these “impressionable moderates” who are easily influenced, yet are important in public opinion competition, which may inspire efficient strategies in winning competitive campaigns.

Situational Breakdowns

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Nassauer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Contextual Factors ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Outcomes ◽  
Dynamic Processes ◽  
Collective Decisions ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Impact

This book provides an account of how and why routine interactions break down and how such situational breakdowns lead to protest violence and other types of surprising social outcomes. It takes a close-up look at the dynamic processes of how situations unfold and compares their role to that of motivations, strategies, and other contextual factors. The book discusses factors that can draw us into violent situations and describes how and why we make uncommon individual and collective decisions. Covering different types of surprise outcomes from protest marches and uprisings turning violent to robbers failing to rob a store at gunpoint, it shows how unfolding situations can override our motivations and strategies and how emotions and culture, as well as rational thinking, still play a part in these events. The first chapters study protest violence in Germany and the United States from 1960 until 2010, taking a detailed look at what happens between the start of a protest and the eruption of violence or its peaceful conclusion. They compare the impact of such dynamics to the role of police strategies and culture, protesters’ claims and violent motivations, the black bloc and agents provocateurs. The analysis shows how violence is triggered, what determines its intensity, and which measures can avoid its outbreak. The book explores whether we find similar situational patterns leading to surprising outcomes in other types of small- and large-scale events: uprisings turning violent, such as Ferguson in 2014 and Baltimore in 2015, and failed armed store robberies.

Modeling Consumer Decisions on Returning End-of-Use Products Considering Design Features and Consumer Interactions: An Agent Based Simulation Approach

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ardeshir Raihanian Mashhadi ◽  
Behzad Esmaeilian ◽  
Sara Behdad
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Waste ◽  
Peer Pressure ◽  
Waste Stream ◽  
Contributing Factors ◽  
Agent Based Simulation ◽  
Design Features ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Consumer Decisions ◽  
Take Back ◽  
The Impact

As electronic waste (e-waste) becomes one of the fastest growing environmental concerns, remanufacturing is considered as a promising solution. However, the profitability of take back systems is hampered by several factors including the lack of information on the quantity and timing of to-be-returned used products to a remanufacturing facility. Product design features, consumers’ awareness of recycling opportunities, socio-demographic information, peer pressure, and the tendency of customer to keep used items in storage are among contributing factors in increasing uncertainties in the waste stream. Predicting customer choice decisions on returning back used products, including both the time in which the customer will stop using the product and the end-of-use decisions (e.g. storage, resell, through away, and return to the waste stream) could help manufacturers have a better estimation of the return trend. The objective of this paper is to develop an Agent Based Simulation (ABS) model integrated with Discrete Choice Analysis (DCA) technique to predict consumer decisions on the End-of-Use (EOU) products. The proposed simulation tool aims at investigating the impact of design features, interaction among individual consumers and socio-demographic characteristics of end users on the number of returns. A numerical example of cellphone take-back system has been provided to show the application of the model.

'Paris rules' will drive global climate progress

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
National Level ◽  
Implementation Process ◽  
Peer Pressure ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Climate Change Effects ◽  
Growth Prospects ◽  
The Impact

Significance COP22 has been dubbed "the COP of action, adaptation and Africa". It is a key opportunity to build confidence in the system of global cooperation adopted at the Paris Climate Conference. The Paris meeting ushered in a new framework for cooperation on climate change based on voluntary emissions reductions targets that will be jointly reviewed every five years. Negotiators gathering in Marrakech for COP22 face the task of making the Paris Agreement work -- and delivering results on a sufficiently large scale. Impacts Cooperation under the Paris framework will help reduce climate change effects, though overshooting of the 2 degree target is inevitable. The Paris deal's reliance on peer pressure and self-policing will risk national-level backsliding during the implementation process. Actions taken in the next ten years will determine the impact of climate change on global growth prospects for the whole of this century.

The Supreme Court as a Countermajoritarian Institution? The Impact of Public Opinion on Supreme Court Decisions

1993 ◽  
Vol 87 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Mishler ◽  
Reginald S. Sheehan
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Membership Change ◽  
Collective Decisions ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Long Term Trends ◽  
Time Series Analyses ◽  
The Impact

Although normative questions about the role of the Supreme Court as a countermajoritarian institution have long excited controversy in democratic theory, empirical questions about how far the Court acts contrary to majoritarian opinion have received less attention. Time series analyses for the period 1956–89 indicate the existence of a reciprocal and positive relationship between long-term trends in aggregate public opinion and the Court's collective decisions. The Court's ideological composition changes in response to previous shifts in the partisan and ideological orientation of the president and Congress. The Court also responds to public opinion at the margins even in the absence of membership change. Since 1981, the relationship has vanished or turned negative in direction. The Court's ideological balance has been upset by an unbroken string of conservative-to-moderate appointments, thereby undermining the dynamics that promote judicial responsiveness and raising questions about the majoritarianism of the contemporary and future Court.

scholarly journals Agent-Based Modelling of Mobility Restrictions at a Large Scale: Exploring the Impact on the COVID-19 Spreading in Italy

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 101195
Author(s):  
Martina Fazio ◽  
Alessandro Pluchino ◽  
Giuseppe Inturri ◽  
Michela Le Pira ◽  
Nadia Giuffrida ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Agent Based Modelling ◽  
The Impact

scholarly journals Impact of Heterogeneity on Opinion Dynamics: Heterogeneous Interaction Model

Complexity ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xi Chen ◽  
Zhan Wu ◽  
Hongwei Wang ◽  
Wei Li
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Interaction Model ◽  
Opinion Dynamics ◽  
Threshold Value ◽  
Physical Distance ◽  
Regulatory Limits ◽  
Heterogeneous Interaction ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Opinion Evolution

Considering the impact that physical distance and other properties have on the change of opinions, this paper introduces an intension model of the Hegselmann-Krause (KH) model—heterogeneous interaction (HI) model. Based on the classical KH model, HI model designs new interaction rules and the interactive radius considering the impact of heterogeneous attributes, such as physical distance, individual conformity, and authority. The experiment results show that the opinion evolution of the HI model will be similar to the classic KH model when the interactive radius is above the particular threshold value (σ>600). Unlike the KH model, which leads to the polarization phenomenon; most agents reach a consensus in HI model when the confidence radius equals 0.2, and the interactive radius remains within regulatory limits (150<σ<520). The conclusions show that interactive radius affects public opinion evolution. HI model can explain more conscious opinion evolution in real life and has significance that effectively guides public opinion.

Relaxing Synchronization Constraints in Distributed Agent-based Simulations

2013 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Omar Rihawi ◽  
Yann Secq ◽  
Philippe Mathieu
Keyword(s):  
Time Management ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Computer Network ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Emergent Properties ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Synchronization Constraints

In the context of situated agents simulations, when the number of agents increases, the number of their interactions will be increased too. These growths leads to higher requirements in memory and computation power. When simulations involve millions of agents, it becomes necessary to distribute the simulator on a computer network. In this paper we study the impact of synchronization policies in such context. Our claim is that when millions of agents are used in a simulation, because observations of these complex systems is made at the population level, emergent properties at the macroscopic level should not be highly impacted if some failure appears at the microscopic level. This paper is focused on the study of the impact of synchronization relaxation in the context of large scale situated agents simulations. We evaluate the cost in performance of several synchronization policies and their impact on the macroscopic properties of simulations. To that aims, we study three different time management mechanisms and evaluate them on two multi-agent applications.

scholarly journals Violence and Reconciliation in Colombia: The Personal and the Contextual

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-347
Author(s):  
James Meernik
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Fully Functioning

In the aftermath of war and large-scale violence, how can nations function as societies? How can people learn to live together again? Or, have the foundations of trust, civility, and predictability upon which fully functioning societies depend been irrevocably damaged? If we want to understand why reconciliation does or does not take root, we must begin by understanding the perspectives and interests of individuals. In this article, I develop such a model of individual attitudes towards reconciliation. In particular, I analyse the determinants of individual beliefs about reconciliation, with a particular emphasis on the impact of violence in Colombia. I combine survey data from the Latin American Public Opinion Project survey on individual attitudes regarding reconciliation with data on political violence to measure the extent to which individuals live in environments characterised by violence and how this shapes their opinions about reconciliation.

scholarly journals Perceptions of Inequality During the Coronavirus Outbreak

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ugur Yildirim
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Online Experiment ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
General Terms ◽  
Preferences For Redistribution ◽  
Perceptions Of Inequality ◽  
The Impact

It is known that Americans’ preferences for redistribution are generally not very elastic in relation to their perceptions of inequality. Even localized crises such as Hurricane Katrina that lay bare existing inequalities in society seem to do little to nothing in moving public opinion on this matter. However, the coronavirus pandemic presents a new opportunity for social scientists and policy experts to test whether large-scale national crises can lead to changes in people’s opinions. What is the impact of a crisis of this proportion on Americans’ attitudes towards inequality? More specifically, is there an “added value” to being informed about class inequalities in the context of the coronavirus outbreak compared to being informed about such inequalities in general terms without reference to this extraordinary event? This study answers these questions using an online experiment that manipulates the information respondents receive prior to answering survey questions. I find that receiving information about class inequalities specifically in relation to the outbreak tends to be much more effective in moving people’s opinions compared to receiving that information in a way that does not directly relate it to coronavirus. This suggests that attitudes can be moved by something as widespread and salient as the pandemic.

scholarly journals Mixing Dyadic and Deliberative Opinion Dynamics in an Agent-Based Model of Group Decision-Making

Complexity ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
George Butler ◽  
Gabriella Pigozzi ◽  
Juliette Rouchier
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Group Decision ◽  
Opinion Dynamics ◽  
Collective Decision ◽  
Collective Decision Making ◽  
Agent Based Model ◽  
Social Modeling ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Collective Decisions ◽  
Collective Deliberation

In this article, we propose an agent-based model of opinion diffusion and voting where influence among individuals and deliberation in a group are mixed. The model is inspired from social modeling, as it describes an iterative process of collective decision-making that repeats a series of interindividual influences and collective deliberation steps, and studies the evolution of opinions and decisions in a group. It also aims at founding a comprehensive model to describe collective decision-making as a combination of two different paradigms: argumentation theory and ABM-influence models, which are not obvious to combine as a formal link between them is required. In our model, we find that deliberation, through the exchange of arguments, reduces the variance of opinions and the proportion of extremists in a population as long as not too much deliberation takes place in the decision processes. Additionally, if we define the correct collective decisions in the system in terms of the arguments that should be accepted, allowing for more deliberation favors convergence towards the correct decisions.

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