2024/08/23 by Corbit R. Sampson, Sampson, Corbit R., Juan Guillermo Restrepo +3 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems (nlin.AO) #Complex Network Analysis Techniques #Dynamical Systems (math.DS) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #FOS: Mathematics #FOS: Physical sciences #Nonlinear Photonic Systems #Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence #Physics and Society (physics.soc-ph) #Social and Information Networks (cs.SI)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2408.13336
openalex publication_date 2024/08/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In traditional models of opinion dynamics, each agent in a network has an opinion and changes in opinions arise from pairwise (i.e., dyadic) interactions between agents. However, in many situations, groups of individuals possess a collective opinion that can differ from the opinions of its constituent individuals. In this paper, we study the effects of group opinions on opinion dynamics. We formulate a hypergraph model in which both individual agents and groups of 3 agents have opinions, and we examine how opinions evolve through both dyadic interactions and group memberships. In some parameter regimes, we find that the presence of group opinions can lead to oscillatory and excitable opinion dynamics. In the oscillatory regime, the mean opinion of the agents in a network has self-sustained oscillations. In the excitable regime, finite-size effects create large but short-lived opinion swings (as in social fads). We develop a mean-field approximation of our model and obtain good agreement with direct numerical simulations. We also show -- both numerically and via our mean-field description -- that oscillatory dynamics occur only when the number of dyadic and polyadic interactions per agent are not completely correlated. Our results illustrate how polyadic structures, such as groups of agents, can have important effects on collective opinion dynamics.