2 research outputs found
Bounded Confidence under Preferential Flip: A Coupled Dynamics of Structural Balance and Opinions
In this work we study the coupled dynamics of social balance and opinion
formation. We propose a model where agents form opinions under bounded
confidence, but only considering the opinions of their friends. The signs of
social ties -friendships and enmities- evolve seeking for social balance,
taking into account how similar agents' opinions are. We consider both the case
where opinions have one and two dimensions. We find that our dynamics produces
the segregation of agents into two cliques, with the opinions of agents in one
clique differing from those in the other. Depending on the level of bounded
confidence, the dynamics can produce either consensus of opinions within each
clique or the coexistence of several opinion clusters in a clique. For the
uni-dimensional case, the opinions in one clique are all below the opinions in
the other clique, hence defining a "left clique" and a "right clique". In the
two-dimensional case, our numerical results suggest that the two cliques are
separated by a hyperplane in the opinion space. We also show that the
phenomenon of unidimensional opinions identified by DeMarzo, Vayanos and
Zwiebel (Q J Econ 2003) extends partially to our dynamics. Finally, in the
context of politics, we comment about the possible relation of our results to
the fragmentation of an ideology and the emergence of new political parties.Comment: 8 figures, PLoS ONE 11(10): e0164323, 201
A case for Ambiguity
A sender wishes to be approved by a receiver, who is outcome concerned. She then has an incentive to send an informative message. But if there is more than one sender competing for the receiver's approval and the latter doubts about the objectives of senders, they each have an incentive to fool the receiver and look as the only truthful sender in the population. If they succeed, no truthful equilibrium exists. In this scenario, we show that it may be in the decision maker's interest to be ambiguous about his motives as, if prospering, he could guarantee revelation of information by (at least) outcome concerned senders.Multiple experts, approval, two sided incomplete information