2019/09/13 by Sebastian Krause, Krause, Sebastian M., Fritz Weyhausen-Brinkmann +3
Decision Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Complex Network Analysis Techniques #FOS: Biological sciences #FOS: Physical sciences #Game Theory and Applications #Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence #Physics and Society (physics.soc-ph) #Populations and Evolution (q-bio.PE) #Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1909.06483
openalex publication_date 2019/09/13 · openalex created_date 2022/07/28 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Opinion formation is a process with strong implications for public policy. In\ncontroversial debates with large consequences, the public opinion is often\ntrapped in a fifty-fifty stalemate, jeopardizing broadly accepted political\ndecisions. Emergent effects from millions of private discussions make it hard\nto understand or influence this kind of opinion dynamics. Here we demonstrate\nthat repulsion from opinions favors fifty-fifty stalemates. We study a voter\nmodel where agents can have two opinions or an undecided state in-between. In\npairwise discussions, undecided agents can be convinced or repelled from the\nopinion expressed by another agent. If repulsion happens in at least one of\nfour cases, as in controversial debates, the frequencies of both opinions\nequalize. Further we include transitions of decided agents to the undecided\nstate. If that happens often, the share of undecided agents becomes large, as\ncan be measured with the share of undecided answers in polls.\n