Opinion Dynamics Under Conformity

36 Pages Posted: 15 Jul 2012

See all articles by Berno Buechel

Berno Buechel

Bielefeld University - Center for Mathematical Economics

Tim Hellmann

University of Southampton; affiliation not provided to SSRN

Stefan Klößner

Saarland University

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: July 12, 2012

Abstract

We present a model of opinion formation where individuals repeatedly engage in discussion and update their opinion in a social network similarly to the DeGroot model. Abstracting from the standard assumption that individuals always report their opinion truthfully, agents in our model interact strategically in the discussion such that their stated opinion can differ from their true opinion. The incentive to do so is induced by agents' preferences for conformity. Highly conforming agents will state an opinion which is close to their neighbors' while agents with low level of conformity may be honest or even overstate their opinion. We model opinion formation as a dynamic process and identify conditions for convergence to consensus. Studying the consensus in detail, we show that an agent's social influence on the consensus opinion is increasing in network centrality and decreasing in the level of conformity. Thus, lower conformity fosters opinion leadership. Moreover, assuming that the initial opinion is a noisy signal about some true state of the world, we consider the mean squared error of the consensus as an estimator for the true state of the world. We show that a society is "wise", i.e. the mean squared error is smaller, if players who are well informed are less conform, while uninformed players conform more with their neighbors.

Keywords: consensus, social networks, conformity, eigenvector centrality, wisdom of the crowds

JEL Classification: C72, D83, D85, Z13

Suggested Citation

Buechel, Berno and Hellmann, Tim and Klößner, Stefan, Opinion Dynamics Under Conformity (July 12, 2012). Institute of Mathematical Economics Working Paper No. 469, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2105602 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2105602

Berno Buechel

Bielefeld University - Center for Mathematical Economics ( email )

Postfach 10 01 31
Bielefeld, D-33501
Germany

Tim Hellmann (Contact Author)

University of Southampton ( email )

Highfield
1
Southampton, Hampshire SO17 1BJ
United Kingdom

HOME PAGE: http://https://sites.google.com/view/thellmann

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Stefan Klößner

Saarland University ( email )

Stadtwald
Saarbrucken, Saarland D-66123
Germany

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