Opinion Formation and Targeting When Persuaders Have Extreme and Centrist Opinions

41 Pages Posted: 27 May 2019

See all articles by Agnieszka Rusinowska

Agnieszka Rusinowska

CNRS - Paris School of Economics

Akylai Taalaibekova

Catholic University of Louvain (UCL) - Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE)

Date Written: April 29, 2019

Abstract

We consider a model of competitive opinion formation in which three persuaders characterized by (possibly unequal) persuasion impacts try to influence opinions in a society of individuals embedded in a social network. Two of the persuaders have the extreme and opposite opinions, and the third one has the centrist opinion. Each persuader chooses one individual to target, i.e., he forms a link with the chosen individual in order to spread his own “point of view” in the society and to get the average long run opinion as close as possible to his own opinion. We examine the opinion convergence and consensus reaching in the society. Also the case when the persuaders choose several targets for diffusion of information is discussed. We study the existence and characterization of pure strategy Nash equilibria in the game played by the persuaders with equal impacts. This characterization depends on influenceability and centrality of the targets. We discuss the effect of the centrist persuader on the consensus and symmetric equilibria, compared to the framework with only two persuaders having the extreme opinions. When the persuasion impacts are unequal with one persuader having a sufficiently large impact, the game has only equilibria in mixed strategies.

Keywords: Social network, opinion formation, consensus, targeting, extreme persuader, centrist persuader

JEL Classification: D85, D72, C72

Suggested Citation

Rusinowska, Agnieszka and Taalaibekova, Akylai, Opinion Formation and Targeting When Persuaders Have Extreme and Centrist Opinions (April 29, 2019). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3379669 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3379669

Agnieszka Rusinowska

CNRS - Paris School of Economics ( email )

3, rue Michel-Ange
106-112 Boulevard de l'Hôpital
Paris cedex 16, 75794
France

Akylai Taalaibekova (Contact Author)

Catholic University of Louvain (UCL) - Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE) ( email )

34 Voie du Roman Pays
B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, b-1348
Belgium

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