Modelling influence and opinion evolution in online collective behaviour

Corentin Vande Kerckove (1) , Samuel Martin (2) , Pascal Gend (2) , Jason Rentfrow (3) , Julien M. Hendrickx (4) , Vincent Blondel (1)

1 INMA - Pôle en ingénierie mathématique
2 CRAN - Centre de Recherche en Automatique de Nancy
3 Department of Psychology
4 ICTEAM - Institute of Information and Communication Technologies, Electronics and Applied Mathematics

Opinion evolution and judgment revision are mediated through social influence. Based on a crowdsourced in vitro experiment, it is shown how a consensus model can be used to predict opinion evolution in online collective behaviour. It is the first time the predictive power of a quantitative model of opinion dynamics is tested against a real dataset. The model is parametrized by the influenceability of each individuals, a factor representing to what extent individuals incorporate external judgments. Judgment revision includes unpredictable variations which limit the potential for prediction. This level of unpredictability is measured via a specific control experiment. More than two thirds of the prediction errors are found to occur due to unpredictability of the human judgment revision process rather than to model imperfection.

Mots clés: opinion dynamics; computational social sciences; consensus; influenceability

Domaines: Psychologie; Autre; Sciences de l'information et de la communication; Sociologie

Corentin Vande Kerckove, Samuel Martin, Pascal Gend, Jason Rentfrow, Julien M. Hendrickx, et al.. Modelling influence and opinion evolution in online collective behaviour. PLoS ONE, 2016, 11 (6), pp.e0157685. ⟨10.1371/journal.pone.0157685⟩. ⟨hal-01321735⟩