Mistry Dina, Zhang Qian, Perra Nicola, Baronchelli Andrea
Laboratory for the Modeling of Biological and Socio-technical Systems, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA.
Centre for Business Network Analysis, University of Greenwich, Park Row, London SE10 9LS, United Kingdom.
Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2015 Oct;92(4):042805. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.92.042805. Epub 2015 Oct 7.
The role of committed minorities in shaping public opinion has been recently addressed with the help of multiagent models. However, previous studies focused on homogeneous populations where zealots stand out only for their stubbornness. Here we consider the more general case in which individuals are characterized by different propensities to communicate. In particular, we correlate commitment with a higher tendency to push an opinion, acknowledging the fact that individuals with unwavering dedication to a cause are also more active in their attempts to promote their message. We show that these activists are not only more efficient in spreading their message but that their efforts require an order of magnitude fewer individuals than a randomly selected committed minority to bring the population over to a new consensus. Finally, we address the role of communities, showing that partisan divisions in the society can make it harder for committed individuals to flip the status-quo social consensus.
近期，借助多智能体模型探讨了坚定少数群体在塑造公众舆论方面的作用。然而，以往的研究聚焦于同质化群体，在这些群体中，狂热者仅因其固执而引人注目。在此，我们考虑更一般的情况，即个体具有不同的交流倾向。具体而言，我们将坚定与更强烈的推动某种观点的倾向相关联，承认这样一个事实：对某项事业坚定不移的个体在传播其理念时也更为积极。我们表明，这些积极分子不仅在传播其观点方面更高效，而且与随机挑选的坚定少数群体相比，他们的努力所需的个体数量要少一个数量级就能使群体达成新的共识。最后，我们探讨了群体的作用，表明社会中的党派分歧会使坚定的个体更难改变现状的社会共识。
