English

Stable target opinion through power law bias in information exchange

Physics and Society 2018-10-16 v1

Abstract

We study a model of binary decision making when a certain population of agents is initially seeded with two different opinions, `++' and `-', with fractions p1p_1 and p2p_2 respectively, p1+p2=1p_1+p_2=1. Individuals can reverse their initial opinion only once based on this information exchange. We study this model on a completely connected network, where any pair of agents can exchange information, and a two-dimensional square lattice with periodic boundary conditions, where information exchange is possible only between the nearest neighbors. We propose a model in which each agent maintains two counters of opposite opinions and accepts opinions of other agents with a power law bias until a threshold is reached, when they fix their final opinion. Our model is inspired by the study of negativity bias and positive-negative asymmetry known in the psychology literature for a long time. Our model can achieve stable intermediate mix of positive and negative opinions in a population. In particular, we show that it is possible to achieve close to any fraction p3,0p31p_3, 0\leq p_3\leq 1, of `-' opinion starting from an initial fraction p1p_1 of `-' opinion by applying a bias through adjusting the power law exponent of p3p_3.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1810.06239,
  title  = {Stable target opinion through power law bias in information exchange},
  author = {Amitava Datta},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1810.06239},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

11 pages, 9 figure