LOCAL EFFECT LEADS TO UNCERTAINTY IN OPINION DYNAMICS

摘要

We study the interweaving of deterministic and stochastic mechanisms in opinion dynamics. Based on the three-choice Galam model, we introduce a theoretical local-mode featuring with a nearest-neighbor network structure to investigate the effects of local connections. We present both numerical and analytical results for the local and the original global modes. We find that operating in the local mode leads to a much slower but richer process to achieve the opinion consensus. It is shown that in the local-mode dynamics, the stochasticity becomes more effective while the correlations between the initial configurations and final results turn out to be less predictive.