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Social consensus and tipping points with opinion inertia

Author

Listed:
  • Doyle, C.
  • Sreenivasan, S.
  • Szymanski, B.K.
  • Korniss, G.

Abstract

When opinions, behaviors or ideas diffuse within a population, some are invariably more sticky than others. The stickier the opinion, behavior or idea, the greater is an individual’s inertia to replace it with an alternative. Here we study the effect of stickiness of opinions in a two-opinion model, where individuals change their opinion only after a certain number of consecutive encounters with the alternative opinion. Assuming that one opinion has a fixed stickiness, we investigate how the critical size of the competing opinion required to tip over the entire population varies as a function of the competing opinion’s stickiness. We analyze this scenario for the case of a complete-graph topology through simulations, and through a semi-analytical approach which yields an upper bound for the critical minority size. We present analogous simulation results for the case of the Erdős–Rényi random network. Finally, we investigate the coarsening properties of sticky opinion spreading on two-dimensional lattices, and show that the presence of stickiness gives rise to an effective surface tension that causes the coarsening behavior to become curvature-driven.

Suggested Citation

  • Doyle, C. & Sreenivasan, S. & Szymanski, B.K. & Korniss, G., 2016. "Social consensus and tipping points with opinion inertia," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 443(C), pages 316-323.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:443:y:2016:i:c:p:316-323
    DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2015.09.081
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    Cited by:

    1. David Ardia & Keven Bluteau & Kris Boudt & Koen Inghelbrecht, 2020. "Climate change concerns and the performance of green versus brown stocks," Working Paper Research 395, National Bank of Belgium.
    2. Mahmoodi, K. & Grigolini, P. & West, B.J., 2018. "On social sensitivity to either zealot or independent minorities," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 185-190.
    3. Carolin V. Zorell, 2020. "Nudges, Norms, or Just Contagion? A Theory on Influences on the Practice of (Non-)Sustainable Behavior," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-21, December.

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