We study a nonequilibrium model with up-down symmetry and a noise parameter $q$ known as majority-vote model of M.J. Oliveira $1992$ on opinion-dependent network or Stauffer-Hohnisch-Pittnauer networks. By Monte Carlo simulations and finite-size scaling relations the critical exponents $β/ν$, $γ/ν$, and $1/ν$ and points $q_{c}$ and $U^*$ are obtained. After extensive simulations, we obtain $β/ν=0.230(3)$, $γ/ν=0.535(2)$, and $1/ν=0.475(8)$. The calculated values of the critical noise parameter and Binder cumulant are $q_{c}=0.166(3)$ and $U^*=0.288(3)$. Within the error bars, the exponents obey the relation $2β/ν+γ/ν=1$ and the results presented here demonstrate that the majority-vote model belongs to a different universality class than the equilibrium Ising model on Stauffer-Hohnisch-Pittnauer networks, but to the same class as majority-vote models on some other networks.
This study investigates adversarial attacks conducted to distort voter model dynamics in complex networks. Specifically, a simple adversarial attack method is proposed to hold the state of opinions of an individual closer to the target state in the voter model dynamics. This indicates that even when one opinion is the majority, the vote outcome can be inverted (i.e., the outcome can lean toward the other opinion) by adding extremely small (hard-to-detect) perturbations strategically generated in social networks. Adversarial attacks are relatively more effective in complex (large and dense) net…
In many instances of election, the electorate appears to be a composite of partisan and independent voters. Given that partisans are not likely to convert to a different party, a main goal for a party could be to mobilize independent voters toward the party with the help of strong leadership, mass media, partisans, and effects of peer-to-peer influence. Based on the exact solution of the classical voter model dynamics in the presence of perfectly partisan voters (i.e., zealots), we propose a computational method to maximize the share of the party in a social network of independent voters by pi…
We introduce a general contagion-like model for competing opinions that includes dynamic resistance to alternative opinions. We show that this model can describe candidate vote distributions, spatial vote correlations, and a slow approach to opinion consensus with sensible parameter values. These empirical properties of large group dynamics, previously understood using distinct models, may be different aspects of human behavior that can be captured by a more unified model, such as the one introduced in this paper.
We investigate the dynamics of the majority-rule opinion formation model when voters experience differential latencies. With this extension, voters that just adopted an opinion go into a latent state during which they are excluded from the opinion formation process. The duration of the latent state depends on the opinion adopted by the voter. The net result is a bias towards consensus on the opinion that is associated with the shorter latency. We determine the exit probability and time to consensus for systems of $N$ voters. Additionally, we derive an asymptotic characterisation of the time to…
The voter model with the node update rule is numerically investigated on a directed network. We start from a directed hierarchical tree, and split and rewire each incoming arc at the probability $p$. In order to discriminate the better and worse opinions, we break the $Z_2$ symmetry ($σ= \pm 1$) by giving a little more preference to the opinion $σ= 1$. It is found that as $p$ becomes larger, introducing more complicated pattern of information flow channels, and as the network size $N$ becomes larger, the system eventually evolves to the state in which more voters agree on the better opinion, e…
The adaptive voter model has been widely studied as a conceptual model for opinion formation processes on time-evolving social networks. Past studies on the effect of zealots, i.e. nodes aiming to spread their fixed opinion throughout the system, only considered the voter model on a static network. Here, we extend the study of zealotry to the case of an adaptive network topology co-evolving with the state of the nodes and investigate opinion spreading induced by zealots depending on their initial density and connectedness. Numerical simulations reveal that below the fragmentation threshold a l…
A model of the opinion dynamics underlying the political decision is proposed. The analysis is restricted to a bipolar scheme with a possible third political area. The interaction among voters is local but the final decision strongly depends on global effects such as, for example, the rating of the governments. As in the realistic case, the individual decision making process is determined by the most relevant personal interests and problems. The phenomenological analysis of the national vote in Italy and Germany has been carried out and a prediction of the next Italian vote as a function of th…
We propose a nonlinear voter model to study the emergence of global consensus in opinion dynamics. In our model, agent $i$ agrees with one of binary opinions with the probability that is a power function of the number of agents holding this opinion among agent $i$ and its nearest neighbors, where an adjustable parameter $α$ controls the effect of herd behavior on consensus. We find that there exists an optimal value of $α$ leading to the fastest consensus for lattices, random graphs, small-world networks and scale-free networks. Qualitative insights are obtained by examining the spatiotemporal…
We generalize a binary majority-vote model on adaptive networks to its plurality-vote counterpart and analyze the time scale to consensus when voters are given more than two options. When opinions are uniformly distributed in the population of voters in the initial state, we find that the time scale to consensus is shorter than the binary vote model from both numerical simulations and mathematical analysis using the master equation for the three-state plurality-vote model. When intervention such as opinion conversion is allowed, as in the case of sudden change of mind of voter for any reason, …
We consider an idealized model in which individuals' changing opinions and their social network coevolve, with disagreements between neighbors in the network resolved either through one imitating the opinion of the other or by reassignment of the discordant edge. Specifically, an interaction between $x$ and one of its neighbors $y$ leads to $x$ imitating $y$ with probability $(1-α)$ and otherwise (i.e., with probability $α$) $x$ cutting its tie to $y$ in order to instead connect to a randomly chosen individual. Building on previous work about the two-opinion case, we study the multiple-opinion…
The q-voter model, a variant of the classic voter model, has been analyzed by several authors: while allowing to study opinion dynamics, this model is also believed to be one of the most representative among the many defined in the wide field of sociophysics. Here, we investigate the consequences of conformity on the consensus reaching process, by numerically simulating a q-voter model with agents behaving either as conformists or non-conformists, embedded on heterogeneous network topologies (as small-world and scale-free). In fact, although it is already known that conformity enhances the rea…
In the coevolving voter model, each voter has one of two diametrically opposite opinions, and a voter encountering a neighbor with the opposite opinion may either adopt it or rewire the connection to another randomly chosen voter sharing the same opinion. As we smoothly change the relative frequency of rewiring compared to that of adoption, there occurs a phase transition between an active phase and a frozen phase. By performing extensive Monte Carlo calculations, we show that the phase transition is characterized by critical exponents β=0.54(1) and ν =1.5(1), which differ from the existing me…
The inference of outcomes in dynamic processes from structural features of systems is a crucial endeavor in network science. Recent research has suggested a machine learning-based approach for the interpretation of dynamic patterns emerging in complex network systems. The hypothesis is applied in this study towards showing opinions can be classified in the voter model with the use of topological features from complex networks. An analysis was first performed with 2 (0 or 1) opinions from a voter model and extended for 3 and then 4 opinions from the same model. A breakdown of the key network to…
Majority-vote model is a much-studied model for social opinion dynamics of two competing opinions. With the recent appreciation that our social network comprises a variety of different layers forming a multiplex network, a natural question arises on how such multiplex interactions affect the social opinion dynamics and consensus formation. Here, the majority-vote model will be studied on multiplex networks to understand the effect of multiplexity on opinion dynamics. We will discuss how global consensus is reached by different types of voters: AND- and OR-rule voters on multiplex-network and v…
Election results are determined by numerous social factors that affect the formation of opinion of the voters, including the network of interactions between them and the dynamics of opinion influence. In this work we study the result of proportional elections using an opinion dynamics model similar to simple opinion spreading over a complex network. Erdos-Renyi, Barabasi-Albert, regular lattices and randomly augmented lattices are considered as models of the underlying social networks. The model reproduces the power law behavior of number of candidates with a given number of votes found in rea…
In this work we study the opinion formation in a voter-like model defined on a square lattice of linear size $L$. The agents may be in three different states, representing any public debate with three choices (yes, no, undecided). We consider heterogeneous agents that have different convictions about their opinions. These convictions limit the capacity of persuasion of the individuals during the interactions. Moreover, there is a noise $p$ that represents the probability of an individual spontaneously change his opinion to the undecided state. Our simulations suggest that the system reaches st…
We introduce the Multiscale Voter Model (MVM) to investigate clan influence at multiple scale -- family, neighborhood, political party... -- in opinion formation on real complex networks. Clans, consisting of similar nodes, are constructed using a coarse-graining procedure on network embeddings that allows us to control for the length scale of interactions. We ran numerical simulations to monitor the evolution of MVM dynamics in real and synthetic networks, and identified a transition between a final stage of full consensus and one with mixed binary opinions. The transition depends on the scal…
Collective leadership and herding may arise in standard models of opinion dynamics as an interplay of a strong separation of time scales within the population and its hierarchical organization. Using the voter model as a simple opinion formation model, we show that, in the herding phase, a group of agents become effectively the leaders of the dynamics while the rest of the population follow blindly their opinion. Interestingly, in some cases such herding dynamics accelerates the time to consensus, which then become size independent or, on the contrary, makes the consensus nearly impossible. Th…
In the standard $q$-voter model, a given agent can change its opinion only if there is a full consensus of the opposite opinion within a group of influence of size $q$. A more realistic extension is the threshold $q$-voter, where a minimal agreement (at least $0<q_0\le q$ opposite opinions) is sufficient to flip the central agent's opinion, including also the possibility of independent (non conformist) choices. Variants of this model including non-conformist behavior have been previously studied in fully connected networks (mean-field limit). Here we investigate its dynamics in random networks…
We investigate a majority-vote model on two-layer multiplex networks with community structure. In our majority-vote model, the edges on each layer encode one type of social relationship and an individual changes their opinion based on the majority opinions of their neighbors in each layer. To capture the fact that different relationships often have different levels of importance, we introduce a layer-preference parameter, which determines the probability of a node to adopt an opinion when the node's neighborhoods on the two layers have different majority opinions. We construct our networks so …
Within the context of agent-based Monte-Carlo simulations, we study the well-known majority-vote model (MVM) with noise applied to tax evasion on simple square lattices, Voronoi-Delaunay random lattices, Barabasi-Albert networks, and Erdös-Rényi random graphs. In the order to analyse and to control the fluctuations for tax evasion in the economics model proposed by Zaklan, MVM is applied in the neighborhod of the noise critical $q_{c}$. The Zaklan model had been studied recently using the equilibrium Ising model. Here we show that the Zaklan model is robust and can be reproduced also through t…
We consider two consensus formation models coupled to Barabasi-Albert networks, namely the Majority Vote model and Biswas-Chatterjee-Sen model. Recent works point to a non-universal behavior of the Majority Vote model, where the critical exponents have a dependence on the connectivity while the effective dimension $D_\mathrm{eff} = 2β/ν+ γ/ν$ of the lattice is unity. We considered a generalization of the scaling relations in order to include logarithmic corrections. We obtained the leading critical exponent ratios $1/ν$, $β/ν$, and $γ/ν$ by finite size scaling data collapses, as well as the lo…
Through Monte Carlo Simulation, the well-known majority-vote model has been studied with noise on directed random graphs. In order to characterize completely the observed order-disorder phase transition, the critical noise parameter $q_c$, as well as the critical exponents $beta/nu$, $gamma/nu$ and $1/nu$ have been calculated as a function of the connectivity $z$ of the random graph.
We study a variant of the voter model with multiple opinions; individuals can imitate each other and also change their opinion randomly in mutation events. We focus on the case of a population with all-to-all interaction. A noise-driven transition between regimes with multi-modal and unimodal stationary distributions is observed. In the former, the population is mostly in consensus states; in the latter opinions are mixed. We derive an effective death-birth process, describing the dynamics from the perspective of one of the opinions, and use it to analytically compute marginals of the stationa…
We study a nonequilibrium model with up-down symmetry and a noise parameter $q$ known as majority-vote model of M.J. Oliveira 1992 with heterogeneous agents on square lattice. By Monte Carlo simulations and finite-size scaling relations the critical exponents $β/ν$, $γ/ν$, and $1/ν$ and points $q_{c}$ and $U^*$ are obtained. After extensive simulations, we obtain $β/ν=0.35(1)$, $γ/ν=1.23(8)$, and $1/ν=1.05(5)$. The calculated values of the critical noise parameter and Binder cumulant are $q_{c}=0.1589(4)$ and $U^*=0.604(7)$. Within the error bars, the exponents obey the relation $2β/ν+γ/ν=2$ a…
The existence of juxtaposed regions of distinct cultures in spite of the fact that people's beliefs have a tendency to become more similar to each other's as the individuals interact repeatedly is a puzzling phenomenon in the social sciences. Here we study an extreme version of the frequency-dependent bias model of social influence in which an individual adopts the opinion shared by the majority of the members of its extended neighborhood, which includes the individual itself. This is a variant of the majority-vote model in which the individual retains its opinion in case there is a tie among …
We study an adaptive network model driven by a nonlinear voter dynamics. Each node in the network represents a voter and can be in one of two states that correspond to different opinions shared by the voters. A voter disagreeing with its neighbor's opinion may either adopt it or rewire its link to another randomly chosen voter with any opinion. The system is studied by means of the pair approximation in which a distinction between the average degrees of nodes in different states is made. This approach allows us to identify two dynamically active phases, a symmetric and an asymmetric one. The a…
We study the critical properties of a non-equilibrium statistical model, the majority-vote model, on heptagonal and dual heptagonal lattices. Such lattices have the special feature that they only can be embedded in negatively curved surfaces. We find, by using Monte Carlo simulations and finite-size analysis, that the critical exponents $1/ν$, $β/ν$ and $γ/ν$ are different from those of the majority-vote model on regular lattices with periodic boundary condition, which belongs to the same universality class as the equilibrium Ising model. The exponents are also from those of the Ising model on…
On directed Barabasi-Albert networks with two and seven neighbours selected by each added site, the Ising model was seen not to show a spontaneous magnetisation. Instead, the decay time for flipping of the magnetisation followed an Arrhenius law for Metropolis and Glauber algorithms, but for Wolff cluster flipping the magnetisation decayed exponentially with time. On these networks the Majority-vote model with noise is now studied through Monte Carlo simulations. However, in this model, the order-disorder phase transition of the order parameter is well defined in this system. We calculate the …
There are many on-line settings in which users publicly express opinions. A number of these offer mechanisms for other users to evaluate these opinions; a canonical example is Amazon.com, where reviews come with annotations like "26 of 32 people found the following review helpful." Opinion evaluation appears in many off-line settings as well, including market research and political campaigns. Reasoning about the evaluation of an opinion is fundamentally different from reasoning about the opinion itself: rather than asking, "What did Y think of X?", we are asking, "What did Z think of Y's opini…
The voter model and the Axelrod model are two of the main stochastic processes that describe the spread of opinions on networks. The former includes social influence, the tendency of individuals to become more similar when they interact, while the latter also accounts for homophily, the tendency to interact more frequently with individuals which are more similar. The Axelrod model has been extensively studied during the past ten years based on numerical simulations. In contrast, we give rigorous analytical results for a generalization of the voter model that is closely related to the Axelrod m…
The dynamics of opinion formation in a society is a complex phenomenon where many variables play an important role. Recently, the influence of algorithms to filter which content is fed to social networks users has come under scrutiny. Supposedly, the algorithms promote marketing strategies, but can also facilitate the formation of filters bubbles in which a user is most likely exposed to opinions that conform to their own. In the two-state majority-vote model an individual adopts an opinion contrary to the majority of its neighbors with probability $q$, defined as the noise parameter. Here, we…
Here, the model of non-equilibrium model with two states ($-1,+1$) and a noise $q$ on simple square lattices proposed for M.J. Oliveira (1992) following the conjecture of up-down symmetry of Grinstein and colleagues (1985) is studied and generalized. This model is well-known, today, as Majority-Vote Model. They showed, through Monte Carlo simulations, that their obtained results fall into the universality class of the equilibrium Ising model on a square lattice. In this work, we generalize the Majority-Vote Model for a version with three states, now including the zero state, ($-1,0,+1$) in two…
We define a stochastic reaction-diffusion process that describes a consensus formation in a non-sedentary population. The process is a diffusive version of the Majority Vote model, where the state update follows two stages: in the first stage, spins are allowed to hop to neighbor nodes with different probabilities for the respective spin orientation, and in the second stage, the spins in the same node can change its values according to the majority vote update rule. The model presents a consensus formation phase when concentration is greater than a threshold value, and a paramagnetic phase on …
The influence of zealots on the noisy voter model is studied theoretically and numerically at the mean-field level. The noisy voter model is a modification of the voter model that includes a second mechanism for transitions between states: apart from the original herding processes, voters may change their states because of an intrinsic, noisy in origin source. By increasing the importance of the noise with respect to the herding, the system exhibits a finite-size phase transition from a quasi-consensus state, where most of the voters share the same opinion, to a one with coexistence. Upon intr…
We generalize a binary majority-vote model on adaptive networks to a plurality-vote counterpart. When opinions are uniformly distributed in the population of voters in the initial state, it is found that having more available opinions in the initial state actually accelerate the time to consensus. In particular, we investigate the three-state plurality-vote model. While time to consensus in two state model scales exponentially with population size $N$, for finite-size system, there is a non-zero probability that either the population reaches the consensus state in a time that is very short and…
In this paper, we generalize the original majority-vote (MV) model with noise from two states to arbitrary $q$ states, where $q$ is an integer no less than two. The main emphasis is paid to the comparison on the nature of phase transitions between the two-state MV (MV2) model and the three-state MV (MV3) model. By extensive Monte Carlo simulation and mean-field analysis, we find that the MV3 model undergoes a discontinuous order-disorder phase transition, in contrast to a continuous phase transition in the MV2 model. A central feature of such a discontinuous transition is a strong hysteresis b…
The majority-vote (MV) model is one of the simplest nonequilibrium Ising-like model that exhibits a continuous order-disorder phase transition at a critical noise. In this paper, we present a quenched mean-field theory for the dynamics of the MV model on networks. We analytically derive the critical noise on arbitrary quenched unweighted networks, which is determined by the largest eigenvalue of a modified network adjacency matrix. By performing extensive Monte Carlo simulations on synthetic and real networks, we find that the performance of the quenched mean-field theory is superior to a hete…
We introduce time variation in the flip-rates of the Voter Model. This type of generalisation is relevant to models of ageing in language change, allowing the representation of changes in speakers' learning rates over their lifetime and may be applied to any other similar model in which interaction rates at the microscopic level change with time. The mean time taken to reach consensus varies in a nontrivial way with the rate of change of the flip-rates, varying between bounds given by the mean consensus times for static homogeneous (the original Voter Model) and static heterogeneous flip-rates…
The voter model is an archetypal stochastic process that represents opinion dynamics. In each update, one agent is chosen uniformly at random. The selected agent then copies the current opinion of a randomly selected neighbour. We investigate the voter model on a network with an exogenous community structure: two cliques (i.e. complete subgraphs) randomly linked by $X$ interclique edges. We show that, counterintuitively, the mean consensus time is typically not a monotonically decreasing function of $X$. Cliques of fixed proportions with opposite initial opinions reach a consensus, on average,…
In this work we study a modified version of the majority-vote model with noise. In particular, we consider a random diluted square lattice for which a site is empty with a probability $r$. In order to analyze the critical behavior of the model, we perform Monte Carlo simulations on lattices with linear sizes up to L=140. By means of a finite-size scaling analysis we estimate the critical noises $q_{c}$ and the critical ratios $β/ν$, $γ/ν$ and $1/ν$ for some values of the probability $r$.
We generalize the original majority-vote model by incorporating an inertia into the microscopic dynamics of the spin flipping, where the spin-flip probability of any individual depends not only on the states of its neighbors, but also on its own state. Surprisingly, the order-disorder phase transition is changed from a usual continuous type to a discontinuous or an explosive one when the inertia is above an appropriate level. A central feature of such an explosive transition is a strong hysteresis behavior as noise intensity goes forward and backward. Within the hysteresis region, a disordered…
On ($3,12^2$), ($4,6,12$) and ($4,8^2$) Archimedean lattices, the critical properties of majority-vote model are considered and studied using the Glauber transition rate proposed by Kwak {\it et all.} [Phys. Rev. E, {\bf 75}, 061110 (2007)] rather than the traditional majority-vote with noise [José Mário de Oliveira, J. Stat. Phys. {\bf 66}, 273 (1992)]. The critical temperature and the critical exponents for this transition rate are obtained from extensive Monte Carlo simulations and with a finite size scaling analysis. The calculated values of the critical temperatures Binder cumulant are $T…
