Link updating strategies influence consensus decisions as a function of the direction of communication

Consensus decision-making in social groups strongly depends on communication links that determine to whom individuals send, and from whom they receive, information. Here, we ask how consensus decisions are affected by strategic updating of links and how this effect varies with the direction of communication. We quantified the co-evolution of link and opinion dynamics in a large population with binary opinions using mean-field numerical simulations of two voter-like models of opinion dynamics: an Incoming model (where individuals choose who to receive opinions from) and an Outgoing model (where individuals choose who to send opinions to). We show that individuals can bias group-level outcomes in their favor by breaking disagreeing links while receiving opinions (Incoming Model) and retaining disagreeing links while sending opinions (Outgoing Model). Importantly, these biases can help the population avoid stalemates and achieve consensus. However, the role of disagreement avoidance is diluted in the presence of strong preferences - highly stubborn individuals can shape decisions to favor their preferences, giving rise to non-consensus outcomes. We conclude that collectively changing communication structures can bias consensus decisions, as a function of the strength of preferences and the direction of communication

Collective Decision Dynamics in the Presence of External Drivers

We develop a sequence of models describing information transmission and decision dynamics for a network of individual agents subject to multiple sources of influence. Our general framework is set in the context of an impending natural disaster, where individuals, represented by nodes on the network, must decide whether or not to evacuate. Sources of influence include a one-to-many externally driven global broadcast as well as pairwise interactions, across links in the network, in which agents transmit either continuous opinions or binary actions. We consider both uniform and variable threshold rules on the individual opinion as baseline models for decision-making. Our results indicate that 1) social networks lead to clustering and cohesive action among individuals, 2) binary information introduces high temporal variability and stagnation, and 3) information transmission over the network can either facilitate or hinder action adoption, depending on the influence of the global broadcast relative to the social network. Our framework highlights the essential role of local interactions between agents in predicting collective behavior of the population as a whole.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figure

The Sea Is Rising… But Not Onto the Policy Agenda: A Multiple Streams Approach to Understanding Sea Level Rise Policies

There has been little policy effort to address sea level rise in coastal states in the US. It is important to examine, at the state level, how the multitude of different (and changing) actors with different preferences and perspectives contribute to such inertia. This study examines state-level legislative inaction with regards to sea level rise. Using Kingdon\u27s multiple streams framework, we draw a picture of the policy landscape in Virginia as one where the problem of sea level rise is perceived as a low priority, with little consensus on achievable policy solutions, and is politically controversial. We find that policy inertia in Virginia is a result of (1) fractious viewpoints regarding sea level rise as a problem, (2) a lack of clear consensus on policy solutions, and (3) conflicting perspectives of the role of the state

Divide-and-rule policy in the Naming Game

The Naming Game is a classic model for studying the emergence and evolution of language in a population. In this paper, we consider the Naming Game with multiple committed opinions and investigate the dynamics of the game on a complete graph with an arbitrary large population. The homogeneous mixing condition enables us to use mean-field theory to analyze the opinion evolution of the system. However, when the number of opinions increases, the number of variables describing the system grows exponentially. We focus on a special scenario where the largest group of committed agents competes with a motley of committed groups, each of which is significantly smaller than the largest one, while the majority of uncommitted agents initially hold one unique opinion. We choose this scenario for two reasons. The first is that it arose many times in different societies, while the second is that its complexity can be reduced by merging all agents of small committed groups into a single committed group. We show that the phase transition occurs when the group of the largest committed fraction dominates the system, and the threshold for the size of the dominant group at which this transition occurs depends on the size of the committed group of the unified category. Further, we derive the general formula for the multi-opinion evolution using a recursive approach. Finally, we use agent-based simulations to reveal the opinion evolution in the random graphs. Our results provide insights into the conditions under which the dominant opinion emerges in a population and the factors that influence this process.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figure

Homogeneous symmetrical threshold model with nonconformity: independence vs. anticonformity

We study two variants of the modified Watts threshold model with a noise (with nonconformity, in the terminology of social psychology) on a complete graph. Within the first version, a noise is introduced via so-called independence, whereas in the second version anticonformity plays the role of a noise, which destroys the order. The modified Watts threshold model, studied here, is homogeneous and posses an up-down symmetry, which makes it similar to other binary opinion models with a single-flip dynamics, such as the majority-vote and the q-voter models. Because within the majority-vote model with independence only continuous phase transitions are observed, whereas within the q-voter model with independence also discontinuous phase transitions are possible, we ask the question about the factor, which could be responsible for discontinuity of the order parameter. We investigate the model via the mean-field approach, which gives the exact result in the case of a complete graph, as well as via Monte Carlo simulations. Additionally, we provide a heuristic reasoning, which explains observed phenomena. We show that indeed, if the threshold r = 0.5, which corresponds to the majority-vote model, an order-disorder transition is continuous. Moreover, results obtained for both versions of the model (one with independence and the second one with anticonformity) give the same results, only rescaled by the factor of 2. However, for r > 0.5 the jump of the order parameter and the hysteresis is observed for the model with independence, and both versions of the model give qualitatively different results.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, accepted to Complexit

Social tipping points and Earth systems dynamics

Recently, Early Warning Signals (EWS) have been developed to predict tipping points in Earth Systems. This discussion highlights the potential to apply EWS to human social and economic systems, which may also undergo similar critical transitions. Social tipping points are particularly difficult to predict, however, and the current formulation of EWS, based on a physical system analogy, may be insufficient. As an alternative set of EWS for social systems, we join with other authors encouraging a focus on heterogeneity, connectivity through social networks and individual thresholds to change

Climate Change and Ethics of Geoengineering -- Implications Of Climate Emergency Ethics

Global climate change and intentional climate modification, i.e. geoengineering include various ethical problems which are entangled as a complex ensemble of questions regarding the future of the biosphere. The possibilities of catastrophic effects of climate change which are also called “climate emergency” have led to the emergence of the idea of modifying the atmospheric conditions in the form of geoengineering. The novel issue of weather ethics is a subdivision of climate ethics, and it is interested in ethical and political questions surrounding weather and climate control and modification in a restricted spatio-temporal scale. The objective of geoengineering is to counterbalance the adverse effects of climate change and its diverse corollaries in various ways on a large scale. The claim of this dissertation is that there are ethical justifications to claim that currently large-scale interventions to the climate system are ethically questionable. The justification to pursue geoengineering on the basis of considering its pros and cons, is inadequate. Moral judgement can still be elaborated in cases where decisions have to be made urgently and the selection of desirable choices is severely limited. The changes needed to avoid severe negative impacts of climate change requires commitment to mitigation as well as social changes because technical solutions cannot address the issue of climate change altogether. The quantitative emphasis of consumerism should shift to qualitative focus on the aspiration for simplicity in order to a move towards the objective of the continuation of the existence of humankind and a flourishing, vital biosphere.Globaali ilmastonmuutos ja ilmastonmuokkaus sisältävät useita eettisiä ongelmia, jotka kietoutuvat monimutkaiseksi kysymysten sarjaksi koskien koko biosfäärin tulevaisuutta. Ilmastonmuutoksen aiheuttamia mahdollisia katastrofaalisia seurauksia kutsutaan myös ilmastohätätilaksi. Ajatus ilmastonmuokkauksesta on syntynyt tämän mahdollisen hätätilan myötävaikutuksesta. Soveltavan etiikan uusi alue, sääetiikka, on ilmastoetiikan osa-alue, joka on kiinnostunut ajallisesti ja paikallisesti rajatuista sään- ja ilmastonmuokkaukseen liittyvistä eettisistä ja poliittisista kysymyksistä. Ilmastonmuokkauksen tavoitteena on tasapainottaa eri tavoin suuressa mittakaavassa ilmastonmuutoksen haitallisia vaikutuksia. Tämän väitöskirjan keskeisin väite on, että on olemassa eettisiä perusteita, joiden mukaan tällä hetkellä laajamittaisesti toteutettu tai suunniteltu ilmastojärjestelmän muokkaaminen on eettisesti kyseenalaista. Ilmastonmuokkauksen oikeutusta ei voida puolustaa vain arvioimalla sen hyötyjä ja haittoja. Sellaisissakin tilanteissa, joissa moraalinen päätöksenteko on tehtävä välittömästi ja toivottujen valintojen valikoima on äärimmäisen rajallinen, on kuitenkin mahdollista tehdä päteviä moraalipäätelmiä. Ilmastonmuutoksen haitallisten vaikutusten välttämiseen tarvittavat muutokset edellyttävät kuitenkin sitoutumista kasvihuonekaasujen hillinnän lisäksi myös sosiaalisiin muutoksiin, sillä pelkät tekniset ratkaisut eivät pysty käsittelemään ilmastonmuutoksen haasteita. Kulutusmyönteisyyden ja -keskeisyyden sijaan tulisi tavoitella laadullisesti arvokkaampia asioita, kuten esimerkiksi pyrkimystä yksinkertaisempaan elämäntapaan. Tämän pyrkimyksen tavoitteena on ihmiskunnan olemassaolon jatkuminen, mikä sisältyy elinvoimaisen ja kukoistavan biosfäärin elämään.Siirretty Doriast

Adaptive dynamical networks

It is a fundamental challenge to understand how the function of a network is related to its structural organization. Adaptive dynamical networks represent a broad class of systems that can change their connectivity over time depending on their dynamical state. The most important feature of such systems is that their function depends on their structure and vice versa. While the properties of static networks have been extensively investigated in the past, the study of adaptive networks is much more challenging. Moreover, adaptive dynamical networks are of tremendous importance for various application fields, in particular, for the models for neuronal synaptic plasticity, adaptive networks in chemical, epidemic, biological, transport, and social systems, to name a few. In this review, we provide a detailed description of adaptive dynamical networks, show their applications in various areas of research, highlight their dynamical features and describe the arising dynamical phenomena, and give an overview of the available mathematical methods developed for understanding adaptive dynamical networks

Facilitating innovation diffusion in social networks using dynamic norms

Dynamic norms have recently emerged as a powerful method to encourage individuals to adopt an innovation by highlighting a growing trend in its uptake. However, there have been no concrete attempts to understand how this individual-level mechanism might shape the collective population behavior. Here, we develop a framework to examine this by encapsulating dynamic norms within a game-theoretic mathematical model for innovation diffusion. Specifically, we extend a network coordination game by incorporating a probabilistic mechanism where an individual adopts the action with growing popularity, instead of the standard best-response update rule; the probability of such an event captures the population’s “sensitivity” to dynamic norms. Theoretical analysis reveals that sensitivity to dynamic norms is key to facilitating social diffusion. Small increases in sensitivity reduces the advantage of the innovation over status quo or the number of initial innovators required to unlock diffusion, while a sufficiently large sensitivity alone guarantees diffusion