Consensus making in multiple correlated social systems : a simulation study

• Main Author: Lim, Yong Ling
• Other Authors: XIAO Gaoxi
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2020
• Subjects: Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/139495
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Individuals live in social networks and go through social interactions daily. Information exchange and opinion evolvement during social interactions within social networks lay the foundation for opinion systems. Prior research on the Deffuant model on duplex networks have shown some interesting results that formed the basis for this paper. This paper studies the opinion dynamics of pair-wise intra-layer and inter-layer interactions by modelling the Deffuant model on a multiplex scale-free network comprising of three identical layers. For such a model, it is found that the existence of multiple layers could either increase or reduce opinion diversity, with the contrasting results stemming from varying the degrees of tolerance of the layers, and segregated by an impair-improve transition point. Next, the tolerance thresholds on the three linked layers have to summate to a value greater than 1 for the layers to individually reach a global consensus. This is similar to the behaviour of a comparable double-layer network, but twice the critical threshold for an equivalent isolated single-layer network. Additionally, investigations on the effects of inter-layer connections between component layers reveal that when the associated layers have low-connectivity, the three opinion systems converges on a separate scale, and when there is a high inter-layer connectivity, an increase of tolerance threshold of either component layers will cause the reduction in opinion cluster numbers on the active layer, independent of tolerance threshold magnitude of the active layer. A further investigation found that the effects of multiplexity on an opinion formation system increases on a decreasing scale.