Range of interaction in an opinion evolution model of ideological self-positioning: contagion, hesitance and polarization

GIMENEZ, MARIA CECILIA; PAZ, ANA PAMELA; MAXI A. BURGOS PACI; REINAUDI, LUIS

PHYSICA A - STATISTICAL AND THEORETICAL PHYSICS

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2016 vol. 447 p. 320 - 330

0378-4371

The evolution of public opinion using physical models is an emerg-ing area within the field of Sociophysics. In the present paper, aStatistical Physics model was developed to study the evolution of theideological self-positioning of an ensemble of agents. The model con-sists of an array of L components, each one of which represents theideology of an agent. The proposed mechanism is based on the ?votermodel?, in which one agent can adopt the opinion of another one ifthe difference is within a certain range. The existence of ?undecided?agents (i.e. agents with no definite opinion) was implemented in themodel. The possibility of radicalization of an agent?s opinion upon in-teraction with another one was also implemented. The results of oursimulations are compared with statistical data taken from the Lati-nobarmetro databank for the cases of Argentina, Chile, Brasil andUruguay during the last decade. Among other results, the effect oftaking into account the undecided agents is the formation of a singlepeak at the middle of the ideological spectrum (which corresponds to acentrist ideological position), in agreement with the real cases studied.