Seminar Details
2019-10-15 (14:00) : Modelling and Analysis of Opinion Dynamics on Social Networks
At Euler building (room A.002)
Organized by Mathematical Engineering
Speaker :
Mengbin Ye (University of Groningen, Netherlands)
Abstract :
Social network analysis is a rich and exciting area of interdisciplinary research that has been tackled by many different scientific communities. Opinion dynamics is a popular topic which uses mathematical models to describe how opinions change as individuals interact over a network. Two recent developments are presented from the perspective of a systems and control engineer, giving some insight into how individual-level processes combine with network-level interactions to determine the evolution, including limiting values, of opinions in the network.
In the first part, a novel model is proposed to describe how an individual s private and expressed opinions (which are not the same in general) evolve under pressure to conform to the group norm. We establish sufficient conditions for a discrepancy to arise between an individual s private and expressed opinions on general networks. We then use the model to explore Asch's conformity experiments and the phenomenon of pluralistic ignorance. In the second part, we consider a model that captures a group of individuals simultaneously discussing logically interdependent topics. We show that when heterogeneity exists in the way individuals view the logical interdependencies, disagreement can arise because of the logical interdependence structure, even though all individuals are trying to reach a consensus of opinions.