Consensus formation on coevolving networks: groups' formation and structure

Abstract

We study the effect of adaptivity on a social model of opinion dynamics and consensus formation. We analyze how the adaptivity of the network of contacts between agents to the underlying social dynamics affects the size and topological properties of groups and the convergence time to the stable final state. We find that, while on static networks these properties are determined by percolation phenomena, on adaptive networks the rewiring process leads to different behaviors: Adaptive rewiring fosters group formation by enhancing communication between agents of similar opinion, though it also makes possible the division of clusters. We show how the convergence time is determined by the characteristic time of link rearrangement. We finally investigate how the adaptivity yields nontrivial correlations between the internal topology and the size of the groups of agreeing agents.

10 pages, 3 figures,to appear in a special proceedings issue of J. Phys. A covering the "Complex Networks: from Biology to Information Technology" conference (Pula, Italy, 2007)

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Cited by in corpus (14)

• Social Influence and Unfollowing Accelerate the Emergence of Echo Chambers
• Opinion and community formation in coevolving networks
• Opinion formation and distribution in a bounded confidence model on various networks
• Early fragmentation in the adaptive voter model on directed networks
• A multi-opinion evolving voter model with infinitely many phase transitions
• Effects of attachment preferences on coevolution of opinions and networks
• An energy-based interaction model for population opinion dynamics with topic coupling
• Spontaneous symmetry breaking of active phase in coevolving nonlinear voter model
• Dynamical and Topological Aspects of Consensus Formation in Complex Networks
• Moment-Closure Approximations for Discrete Adaptive Networks
• Opinion dynamics of random-walking agents on a lattice
• Approach to consensus in models of continuous-opinion dynamics: a study inspired by the physics of granular gases
• Loss of community identity in opinion dynamics models as a function of inter-group interaction strength
• Non-Thermal Transitions in n-th Order Moral Decisions