English

The Value of Conflict in Stable Social Networks

Physics and Society 2015-10-28 v1 Social and Information Networks

Abstract

A cooperative network model of sociological interest is examined to determine the sensitivity of the global dynamics to having a fraction of the members behaving uncooperatively, that is, being in conflict with the majority. We study a condition where in the absence of these uncooperative individuals, the contrarians, the control parameter exceeds a critical value and the network is frozen in a state of consensus. The network dynamics change with variations in the percentage of contrarians, resulting in a balance between the value of the control parameter and the percentage of those in conflict with the majority. We show that the transmission of information from a network BB to a network AA, with a small fraction of lookout members in AA who adopt the behavior of BB, becomes maximal when both networks are assigned the same critical percentage of contrarians.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1506.04326,
  title  = {The Value of Conflict in Stable Social Networks},
  author = {Pensri Pramukkul and Adam Svenkeson and Bruce J. West and Paolo Grigolini},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1506.04326},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

5 pages, 3 figures, 1 supplement