Who's talking first? Consensus or lack thereof in coevolving opinion formation models

Cecilia Nardini (1, 2) , Balazs Kozma (1) , Alain Barrat (1, 3)

1 LPT - Laboratoire de Physique Théorique d'Orsay [Orsay]
2 Unipd - Università degli Studi di Padova = University of Padua
3 Complex Networks Lagrange Laboratory

We investigate different opinion formation models on adaptive network topologies. Depending on the dynamical process, rewiring can either (i) lead to the elimination of interactions between agents in different states, and accelerate the convergence to a consensus state or break the network in non-interacting groups or (ii) counter-intuitively, favor the existence of diverse interacting groups for exponentially long times. The mean-field analysis allows to elucidate the mechanisms at play. Strikingly, allowing the interacting agents to bear more than one opinion at the same time drastically changes the model's behavior and leads to fast consensus.

Domaines: Physique et Société [physics.soc-ph]; Mécanique statistique [cond-mat.stat-mech]

Cecilia Nardini, Balazs Kozma, Alain Barrat. Who's talking first? Consensus or lack thereof in coevolving opinion formation models. Physical Review Letters, 2008, 100 (15), pp.158701. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.158701⟩. ⟨hal-00186203v2⟩