Discord
@hash/opinion-spread
Simulation
3
1
Public

Opinion Spread

A model of cultural diffusion or "opinion" spread. Every agent has an array which contains a number of "opinions". Each opinion can have a number of different values, and an agent expresses one at any given time.

A model of cultural diffusion or "opinion" spread. Every agent has an array which contains a number of "opinions". Each opinion can have a number of different values, and an agent expresses one at any given time.

Every step, each agent randomly selects a neighbor, and has a change of adopting one of its feature values. The likelihood is higher the more feature values match between the two agents, and is 0 if none of their features match.

The rgb color of each agent is determined by the value of the first 3 opinions (when opinionCount is greater than 3, visualization will not fully represent differences between agent opinions).

Unlike other models of opinion spread, this one often does not converge to one global opinion. Global convergence is generally criticized as being unrealistic.

---Analysis--- The Plots tab shows the number of agents who are currently stable. An agent is stabilized when its opinions don't change from one step to the next. Note that many times you will see an overall decrease in stability before the final convergence.

What properties of the model can you change to affect the time to convergence? What properties can you change to increase or decrease the number of "opinions" left after convergence?