IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sfi/sfiwpa/500060.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Theory of collective opinion shifts: from smooth trends to abrupt swings

Author

Listed:
  • Quentin Michard

    (CEA Saclay, Service de Physique de l’Etat Condensé)

  • Jean-Philippe Bouchaud

    (Science & Finance, Capital Fund Management
    CEA Saclay;)

Abstract

We unveil collective effects induced by imitation and social pressure by analyzing data from three different sources: birth rates, sales of cell phones and the drop of applause in concert halls. We interpret our results within the framework of the Random Field Ising Model, which is a threshold model for collective decisions accounting both for agent heterogeneity and social imitation. Changes of opinion can occur either abruptly or continuously, depending on the importance of herding effects. The main prediction of the model is a scaling relation between the height h of the speed of variation peak and its width $w$ of the form h ~ w^{-kappa}, with kappa = 2/3 for well connected populations. Our three sets of data are compatible with such a prediction, with kappa ~ 0.62 for birth rates, kappa ~ 0.71 for cell phones and kappa ~ 0.64 for clapping. In this last case, we in fact observe that some clapping samples end discontinuously (w=0), as predicted by the model for strong enough imitation.

Suggested Citation

  • Quentin Michard & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, 2005. "Theory of collective opinion shifts: from smooth trends to abrupt swings," Science & Finance (CFM) working paper archive 500060, Science & Finance, Capital Fund Management.
    • Handle: RePEc:sfi:sfiwpa:500060
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Christoph J. Borner & Ingo Hoffmann & John H. Stiebel, 2024. "A closer look at the chemical potential of an ideal agent system," Papers 2401.09233, arXiv.org.
    2. Li, Jie & Wang, Juan & Sun, Shiwen & Xia, Chengyi, 2018. "Cascading crashes induced by the individual heterogeneity in complex networks," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 323(C), pages 182-192.
    3. Mirta B. Gordon & Jean-Pierre Nadal & Denis Phan & Viktoriya Semeshenko, 2012. "Entanglement between Demand and Supply in Markets with Bandwagon Goods," Papers 1209.1321, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2012.
    4. Christian Borghesi & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, 2007. "Of songs and men: a model for multiple choice with herding," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 41(4), pages 557-568, August.
    5. Martins, André C.R. & Pereira, Carlos de B. & Vicente, Renato, 2009. "An opinion dynamics model for the diffusion of innovations," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 388(15), pages 3225-3232.
    6. Denis Phan, 2006. "Discrete Choices under Social Influence:Generic Properties," Post-Print halshs-00105857, HAL.
    7. Didier SORNETTE, 2014. "Physics and Financial Economics (1776-2014): Puzzles, Ising and Agent-Based Models," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 14-25, Swiss Finance Institute.
    8. Damien Challet, 2016. "Regrets, learning and wisdom," Papers 1605.01052, arXiv.org.
    9. Sebastien Valeyre, 2022. "Optimal trend following portfolios," Papers 2201.06635, arXiv.org.
    10. Serge Galam, 2011. "Market efficiency, anticipation and the formation of bubbles-crashes," Papers 1106.1577, arXiv.org.
    11. D. Sornette, 2014. "Physics and Financial Economics (1776-2014): Puzzles, Ising and Agent-Based models," Papers 1404.0243, arXiv.org.
    12. Vaz Martins, Teresa & Araújo, Tanya & Augusta Santos, Maria & St Aubyn, Miguel, 2009. "Network effects in a human capital based economic growth model," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 388(11), pages 2207-2214.
    13. Kindler, A. & Solomon, S. & Stauffer, D., 2013. "Peer-to-peer and mass communication effect on opinion shifts," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 392(4), pages 785-796.
    14. Sebastien Valeyre, 2020. "Refined model of the covariance/correlation matrix between securities," Papers 2001.08911, arXiv.org.
    15. Jean Philippe Bouchaud & Matteo Marsili & Jean-Pierre Nadal, 2023. "Application of spin glass ideas in social sciences, economics and finance," Post-Print hal-04145594, HAL.
    16. Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, 2012. "Crises and collective socio-economic phenomena: simple models and challenges," Papers 1209.0453, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2012.
    17. Daniele Notarmuzi & Claudio Castellano & Alessandro Flammini & Dario Mazzilli & Filippo Radicchi, 2022. "Universality, criticality and complexity of information propagation in social media," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-8, December.
    18. Moran, José & Fosset, Antoine & Kirman, Alan & Benzaquen, Michael, 2021. "From ants to fishing vessels: a simple model for herding and exploitation of finite resources," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    19. Thompson, Michael & Young, Louise, 2014. "Measuring complex patterns in space–time," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 28-35.
    20. Jean-Philippe Bouchaud & Matteo Marsili & Jean-Pierre Nadal, 2023. "Application of spin glass ideas in social sciences, economics and finance," Papers 2306.16165, arXiv.org.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sfi:sfiwpa:500060. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/scfinfr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.