2006/11/30 by A. Baronchelli, Andrea Baronchelli, L. Dall'Asta +5 · 5 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · Social Sciences · #Complex Network Analysis Techniques #Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation #Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence #cond-mat.stat-mech #cs.MA #physics.soc-ph #q-bio.PE
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.76.051102
published as Phys. Rev. E 76, 051102 (2007) · 4 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2007/07/23 · openalex publication_date 2007/11/05 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We introduce a model of negotiation dynamics whose aim is that of mimicking the mechanisms leading to opinion and convention formation in a population of individuals. The negotiation process, as opposed to "herdinglike" or "bounded confidence" driven processes, is based on a microscopic dynamics where memory and feedback play a central role. Our model displays a nonequilibrium phase transition from an absorbing state in which all agents reach a consensus to an active stationary state characterized either by polarization or fragmentation in clusters of agents with different opinions. We show the existence of at least two different universality classes, one for the case with two possible opinions and one for the case with an unlimited number of opinions. The phase transition is studied analytically and numerically for various topologies of the agents' interaction network. In both cases the universality classes do not seem to depend on the specific interaction topology, the only relevant feature being the total number of different opinions ever present in the system.