https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2009-00343-8
Diversity-induced resonance in a model for opinion formation
1
Chair of Systems Design, ETH Zurich, 8032 Zurich, Switzerland
2
IFISC (Instituto de Física Interdisciplinar y Sistemas Complejos), CSIC-UIB, Campus UIB, 07122 Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Corresponding authors: a tessonec@ethz.ch - b raul@ifisc.uib-csic.es
Received:
4
August
2008
Revised:
19
July
2009
Published online:
13
October
2009
We study an opinion formation model that takes into account that individuals have diverse preferences when adopting an opinion regarding a particular issue. We show that the system exhibits “diversity-induced resonance” [C.J. Tessone et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 194101 (2006)], by which an external influence (for example advertising, or fashion trends) is better followed by populations having the right degree of diversity in their preferences, rather than others where the individuals are identical or have too different preferences. We support our findings by numerical simulations of the model in different network topologies and a mean-field type analytical theory.
PACS: 87.23.Ge – Dynamics of social systems / 02.50.-r – Probability theory, stochastic processes, and statistics / 89.65.-s – Social and economic systems
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 2009
