Interacting Agents and Continuous Opinions Dynamics

Abstract

We present a model of opinion dynamics in which agents adjust continuous opinions as a result of random binary encounters whenever their difference in opinion is below a given threshold. High thresholds yield convergence of opinions towards an average opinion, whereas low thresholds result in several opinion clusters. The model is further generalised to network interactions, threshold heterogeneity, adaptive thresholds and binary strings of opinions.Comment: 21 pages, 13 figures. http://www.lps.ens.fr/~weisbuch/contopidyn/contopidyn.htm