A model of anonymous influence with anti-conformist agents

Journal article: We study a stochastic model of anonymous influence with conformist and anti-conformist individuals. Each agent with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ initial opinion on a certain issue can change his opinion due to social influence. We consider anonymous influence, which depends on the number of agents having a certain opinion, but not on their identity. An individual is conformist/anti-conformist if his probability of saying ‘yes’ increases/decreases with the number of ‘yes’- agents. In order to consider a society in which both conformists and anti-conformists co-exist, we investigate a generalized aggregation mechanism based on ordered weighted averages. Additionally, every agent has a coefficient of conformism which is a real number in [-1, 1], with negative/positive values corresponding to anti-conformists/conformists. The two extreme values -1 and 1 represent a pure anti-conformist and a pure conformist, respectively, and the remaining values – so called ‘mixed’ agents. We consider two kinds of a society: without mixed agents, and with mixed agents who play randomly either as conformists or anti-conformists. For both cases of the model, we deliver a qualitative analysis of convergence, i.e., find all absorbing classes and conditions for their occurence.

Author(s)

Michel Grabisch, Alexis Poindron, Agnieszka Rusinowska

Journal
  • Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control
Date of publication
  • 2019
Keywords JEL
C7 D7 D85
Keywords
  • Anti-conformism
  • Convergence
  • Absorbing class
  • Opinion dynamics
  • Influence
  • Anonymity
Pages
  • 103773
Version
  • 2
Volume
  • 109