In the voter and many other opinion formation models, agents are assumed to behave as congregators (also called the conformists); they are attracted to the opinions of others. In this study, I investigate linear extensions of the voter model with contrarian agents. An agent is either congregator or contrarian and assumes a binary opinion. I investigate three models that differ in the behavior of the contrarian toward other agents. In model 1, contrarians mimic the opinions of other contrarians and oppose (i.e., try to select the opinion opposite to) those of congregators. In model 2, contrarians mimic the opinions of congregators and oppose those of other contrarians. In model 3, contrarians oppose anybody. In all models, congregators are assumed to like anybody. I show that even a small number of contrarians prohibits the consensus in the entire population to be reached in all three models. I also obtain the equilibrium distributions using the van Kampen small-fluctuation approximation and the Fokker-Planck equation for the case of many contrarians and a single contrarian, respectively. I show that the fluctuation around the symmetric coexistence equilibrium is much larger in model 2 than in models 1 and 3 when contrarians are rare.
The influence of contrarians on the noisy voter model is studied at the mean-field level. The noisy voter model is a variant of the voter model where agents can adopt two opinions, optimistic or pessimistic, and can change them by means of an imitation (herding) and an intrinsic (noise) mechanisms. An ensemble of noisy voters undergoes a finite-size phase transition, upon increasing the relative importance of the noise to the herding, form a bimodal phase where most of the agents shear the same opinion to a unimodal phase where almost the same fraction of agent are in opposite states. By the i…
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…
We investigate mean-field dynamics of a nonlinear opinion formation model with congregator and contrarian agents. Each agent assumes one of the two possible states. Congregators imitate the state of other agents with a rate that increases with the number of other agents in the opposite state, as in the linear voter model and nonlinear majority voting models. Contrarians flip the state with a rate that increases with the number of other agents in the same state. The nonlinearity controls the strength of the majority voting and is used as a main bifurcation parameter. We show that the model unde…
We study the contrarian voter model for opinion formation in a society under the influence of an external oscillating propaganda and stochastic noise. Each agent of the population can hold one of two possible opinions on a given issue --against or in favor, and interacts with its neighbors following either an imitation dynamics (voter behavior) or an anti-alignment dynamics (contrarian behavior): each agent adopts the opinion of a random neighbor with a time-dependent probability $p(t)$, or takes the opposite opinion with probability $1-p(t)$. The imitation probability $p(t)$ is controlled by …
We investigate the opinion evolution of outflow dynamics based on the Sznajd model on a complete graph involving contrarian and independence behaviors. We consider a group of four spins representing the social agents with the following scenarios: (1) scenario two-two with contrarian agents or independence agents and (2) scenario three-one with contrarian or independence agents. All of them undergo a second-order phase transition according to our simulation. The critical point decreases exponentially as $λ$ and $f$ increases, where $λ$ and $f$ are contrarian and flexibility factors, respectivel…
The relationship between the topology of a network and specific types of dynamics unfolding in networks constitutes a subject of substantial interest. One type of dynamics that has attracted increasing attention because of its several potential implications is opinion formation. A phenomenon of particular importance, known to take place in opinion formation, is echo chambers' appearance. In the present work, we approach this phenomenon, while emphasizing the influence of contrarian opinions in a multi-opinion scenario. To define the contrarian opinion, we considered the Underdog effect, which …
In this work we study opinion formation on a fully-connected population participating of a public debate with two distinct choices, where the agents may adopt three different attitudes (favorable to either one choice or to the other, or undecided). The interactions between agents occur by pairs and are competitive, with couplings that are either negative with probability $p$ or positive with probability $1-p$. This bimodal probability distribution of couplings produces a behavior similar to the one resulting from the introduction of Galam's contrarians in the population. In addition, we consid…
The dynamics of adoption of innovations is an important subject in many fields and areas, like technological development, industrial processes, social behavior, fashion or marketing. The number of adopters of a new technology generally increases following a kind of logistic function. However, empirical data provide evidences that this behavior may be more complex, as many factors influence the decision to adopt an innovation. On the one hand, although some individuals are inclined to adopt an innovation if many people do the same, there are others who act in the opposite direction, trying to d…
In recent months the figure of Greta Thunberg and the theme of climate changings quickly became the focus of the debate. This has lead to a polarization effect in opinion forming about the climate subject. Starting from the analysis of this phenomenon, we develop an opinion dynamics model in which several types of contrarians agents are considered. Each agent is supposed to have an opinion on several topics related to each other, thus the opinions being formed on these topics are also mutually dependent. The aim of the paper is to investigate the indirect effects of contrarians agents on the c…
In this work we consider the presence of contrarian agents in discrete 3-state kinetic exchange opinion models. The contrarians are individuals that adopt the choice opposite to the prevailing choice of their contacts, whatever this choice is. We consider binary as well as three-agent interactions, with stochastic parameters, in a fully-connected population. Our numerical results suggest that the presence of contrarians destroys the absorbing state of the original model, changing the transition to the para-ferromagnetic type. In this case, the consequence for the society is that the three opin…
Chaotic, staggered and polarized dynamics in opinion forming: the contrarian effect
我们重新审视没有平局打破2状态Galam逆势模型的观点动力学的更新组的大小为3。虽然最初的模型假设两种观点的反向投资者a的密度是恒定的，但现在它取决于每种观点的整体支持。因此，比例反向投资者确实保持了前一种情况下的主要结果。然而，将逆向行为仅限于当前的集体多数，使得动态更加复杂，具有新颖的特征。对于密度a<a_c=1/9的单侧反转，在由两个多数-少数点吸引子分隔开的50 - 50区域中发现了一个混沌盆地，每边一个。对于1/9<a0.301< 0.301 only the chaotic basin survives. In the range a>，混沌盆地消失，大多数开始在两种观点之间交替，并向两个点吸引子交错流动。然后，我们研究两者的效果，解耦本地更新时间序列从逆向行为激活，和平滑的多数规则。一个现状驱动的反向激活偏见也被认为是。引入不稳定的代理人在辩论中驱动的逆向基础上，只缩小了混乱的盆地。该模型可能揭示了最近明显矛盾的选举，一方面像2000年的美国和2002年和2005年的德国一样，结果非常接近，另一方面，像2002年的法国一样，占绝对多数。
People are often divided into conformists and contrarians, the former tending to align to the majority opinion in their neighborhood and the latter tending to disagree with that majority. In practice, however, the contrarian tendency is rarely followed when there is an overwhelming majority with a given opinion, which denotes a social norm. Such reasonable contrarian behavior is often considered a mark of independent thought, and can be a useful strategy in financial markets. We present the opinion dynamics of a society of reasonable contrarian agents. The model is a cellular automaton of Isin…
We study models of a society composed of a mixture of conformist and reasonable contrarian agents that at any instant hold one of two opinions. Conformists tend to agree with the average opinion of their neighbors and reasonable contrarians to disagree, but revert to a conformist behavior in the presence of an overwhelming majority, in line with psychological experiments. The model is studied in the mean field approximation and on small-world and scale-free networks. In the mean field approximation, a large fraction of conformists triggers a polarization of the opinions, a pitchfork bifurcatio…
Asymmetry in contrarian behavior is investigated within the Galam model of opinion dynamics using update groups of size 3 with two competing opinions A and B. Denoting $x$ and $y$ the respective proportions of A and B contrarians, four schemes of implementations are studied. First scheme activates contrarians after each series of updates with probabilities $x$ and $y$ for agents holding respectively opinion A and B. Second scheme activates contrarians within the update groups only against global majority with probability $x$ when A is majority and $y$ when B is majority. Third scheme considers…
In this paper, we study influence maximization in the voter model in the presence of biased voters (or zealots) on complex networks. Under what conditions should an external controller with finite budget who aims at maximizing its influence over the system target zealots? Our analysis, based on both analytical and numerical results, shows a rich diagram of preferences and degree-dependencies of allocations to zealots and normal agents varying with the budget. We find that when we have a large budget or for low levels of zealotry, optimal strategies should give larger allocations to zealots and…
For Agent Based Models, in particular the Voter Model (VM), a general framework of aggregation is developed which exploits the symmetries of the agent network $G$. Depending on the symmetry group $Aut_ω (N)$ of the weighted agent network, certain ensembles of agent configurations can be interchanged without affecting the dynamical properties of the VM. These configurations can be aggregated into the same macro state and the dynamical process projected onto these states is, contrary to the general case, still a Markov chain. The method facilitates the analysis of the relation between microscopi…
In this work, we investigate interactions that simultaneously order a system locally, while keeping it globally disordered. The study is done in the context of the emergence of diversity in opinion propagation models with interactions rooted in conformity, but some suggestions on how this could be extended to other topics (like ecology and neuroscience) are also made. We do this by introducing a generic modification that can be added to different opinion propagation models (and other agent based models) and that seems to introduce a global tendency towards diversity without leading the system …
We examine an opinion formation model, which is a mixture of Voter and Ising agents. Numerical simulations show that even a very small fraction ($\sim 1\%$) of the Ising agents drastically changes the behaviour of the Voter model. The Voter agents act as a medium, which correlates sparsely dispersed Ising agents, and the resulting ferromagnetic ordering persists up to a certain temperature. Upon addition of the Ising agents, a logarithmically slow coarsening of the Voter model ($d=2$), or its active steady state ($d=3$), change into an Ising-type power-law coarsening.
The voter model has been studied extensively as a paradigmatic opinion dynamics' model. However, its ability for modeling real opinion dynamics has not been addressed. We introduce a noisy voter model (accounting for social influence) with agents' recurrent mobility (as a proxy for social context), where the spatial and population diversity are taken as inputs to the model. We show that the dynamics can be described as a noisy diffusive process that contains the proper anysotropic coupling topology given by population and mobility heterogeneity. The model captures statistical features of the U…
We introduce the threshold $q$-voter opinion dynamics where an agent, facing a binary choice, can change its mind when at least $q_0$ amongst $q$ neighbors share the opposite opinion. Otherwise, the agent can still change its mind with a certain probability $\varepsilon$. This threshold dynamics contemplates the possibility of persuasion by an influence group even when there is not full agreement among its members. In fact, individuals can follow their peers not only when there is unanimity ($q_0=q$) in the lobby group, as assumed in the $q$-voter model, but, depending on the circumstances, al…
We consider the herding to non-herding transition caused by idiosyncratic choices or imperfect imitation in the context of the Kirman Model for financial markets, or equivalently the Noisy Voter Model for opinion formation. In these original models this is a finite size transition that disappears for a large number of agents. We show how the introduction of two different mechanisms make this transition robust and well defined. A first mechanism is nonlinear interactions among agents taking into account the nonlinear effect of local majorities. The second one is aging, so that the longer an age…
Is it more effective to have a strong influence over a small domain, or a weaker influence over a larger one? Here, we introduce and analyse an off-lattice generalisation of the voter model, in which the range and strength of agents' influence are control parameters. We consider both low and high density regimes and, using distinct mathematical approaches, derive analytical predictions for the evolution of agent densities. We find that, even when the agents are equally persuasive on average, those whose influence is wider but weaker have an overall noise-driven advantage allowing them to relia…
In this paper we study the impact of news media and public surveys on the electoral campaigns for political competitions. We present an agent-based model that addresses the effective influence of surveys in orienting the opinions of voters before elections. The dynamics of electoral consensus is studied as a function of time by investigating different possible scenarios and the effect of periodic surveys, on the opinions of a small community of voters represented as a network of agents connected by realistic social relationships. Our simulations show the possibility to manage opinion consensus…
We introduce the heterogeneous voter model (HVM), in which each agent has its own intrinsic rate to change state, reflective of the heterogeneity of real people, and the partisan voter model (PVM), in which each agent has an innate and fixed preference for one of two possible opinion states. For the HVM, the time until consensus is reached is much longer than in the classic voter model. For the PVM in the mean-field limit, a population evolves to a "selfish" state, where each agent tends to be aligned with its internal preference. For finite populations, discrete fluctuations ultimately lead t…
We study the behavior of a generalized consensus dynamics on a temporal network of interactions, the activity driven network with attractiveness. In this temporal network model, agents are endowed with an intrinsic activity $a$, ruling the rate at which they generate connections, and an intrinsic attractiveness $b$, modulating the rate at which they receive connections. The consensus dynamics considered is a mixed voter/Moran dynamics. Each agent, either in state $0$ or $1$, modifies his/her state when connecting with a peer. Thus, an active agent copies his/her state from the peer (with proba…
Numerous models in opinion dynamics focus on the temporal dynamics within a single electoral unit (e.g., country). The empirical observations, on the other hand, are often made across multiple electoral units (e.g., polling stations) at a single point in time (e.g., elections). Aggregates of these observations, while quite useful in many applications, neglect the underlying heterogeneity in opinions. To address this issue we build a simple agent-based model in which all agents have fixed opinions, but are able to change their electoral units. We demonstrate that this model is able to generate …
The diffusion of opinions in Social Networks is a relevant process for adopting positions and attracting potential voters in political campaigns. Opinion polarization, bias, targeted diffusion, and the radicalization of postures are key elements for understanding voting dynamics. In particular, social bots are a new element that can have a pronounced effect on the formation of opinions during elections by, for instance, creating fake accounts in social networks to manipulate elections. Here we propose a voter model incorporating bots and radical or intolerant individuals in the decision-making…
We study the dynamics of opinion formation in a heterogeneous voter model on a complete graph, in which each agent is endowed with an integer fitness parameter $k \ge 0$, in addition to its $+$ or $-$ opinion state. The evolution of the distribution of $k$--values and the opinion dynamics are coupled together, so as to allow the system to dynamically develop heterogeneity and memory in a simple way. When two agents with different opinions interact, their $k$--values are compared and, with probability $p$ the agent with the lower value adopts the opinion of the one with the higher value, while …
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…
Adaptive models of opinion formation among humans can display a fragmentation transition, where a social network breaks into disconnected components. Here, we investigate this transition in a class of models with arbitrary number of opinions. In contrast to previous work we do not assume that opinions are equidistant or arranged on a one-dimensional conceptual axis. Our investigation reveals detailed analytical results on fragmentations in a three-opinion model, which are confirmed by agent-based simulations. Furthermore, we show that in certain models the number of opinions can be reduced wit…
The voter model is a simple agent-based model to mimic opinion dynamics in social networks: a randomly chosen agent adopts the opinion of a randomly chosen neighbour. This process is repeated until a consensus emerges. Although the basic voter model is theoretically intriguing, it misses an important feature of real opinion dynamics: it does not distinguish between an agent's publicly expressed opinion and her inner conviction. A person may not feel comfortable declaring her conviction if her social circle appears to hold an opposing view. Here we introduce the Concealed Voter Model where we a…
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…
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,…
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…
The voter model rules are simple, with agents copying the state of a random neighbor, but they lead to non-trivial dynamics. Besides opinion processes, the model has also applications for catalysis and species competition. Inspired by the temporal inhomogeneities found in human interactions, one can introduce ageing in the agents: the probability to update decreases with the time elapsed since the last change. This modified dynamics induces an approach to consensus via coarsening in complex networks. Additionally, multilayer networks produce profound changes in the dynamics of models. In this …
We introduce a general methodology of update rules accounting for arbitrary interevent time distributions in simulations of interacting agents. In particular we consider update rules that depend on the state of the agent, so that the update becomes part of the dynamical model. As an illustration we consider the voter model in fully-connected, random and scale free networks with an update probability inversely proportional to the persistence, that is, the time since the last event. We find that in the thermodynamic limit, at variance with standard updates, the system orders slowly. The approach…
We propose a three-state microscopic opinion formation model for the purpose of simulating the dynamics of financial markets. In order to mimic the heterogeneous composition of the mass of investors in a market, the agent-based model considers two different types of traders: noise traders and contrarians. Agents are represented as nodes in a network of interactions and they can assume any of three distinct possible states (e.g. buy, sell or remain inactive). The time evolution of the state of an agent is dictated by probabilistic dynamics that include both local and global influences. A noise …
The flourishing of fake news is favored by recommendation algorithms of online social networks which, based on previous users activity, provide content adapted to their preferences and so create filter bubbles. We introduce an analytically tractable voter model with personalized information, in which an external field tends to align the agent opinion with the one she held more frequently in the past. Our model shows a surprisingly rich dynamics despite its simplicity. An analytical mean-field approach, confirmed by numerical simulations, allows us to build a phase diagram and to predict if and…
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…
