Spontaneous emergence of a third position in an opinion formation model

Abstract

Opinion dynamics is one of the most studied problems in sociophysics. Many easy-to-analyze dynamical systems are modeled in a language of agent-based numerical procedures in order to provide new insights for understanding collective phenomena. The present work is devoted to analyze the effects of spatial heterogeneities in the initial topological map of agent ideas. In the spirit of the statistical physics of social impact, we study the consequences of running a Sznajd model into a structured opinion formation dynamics of a given social community. We carry out a spatio-temporal fractal analysis of the ideological configuration map, showing novel features belonging to different initial conditions. By performing numerical simulations, we mainly show how the evolution of ideas can lead to a spontaneous emergence of a third ideological position. This emergence is just characterized by few parameters: the dimensionality of the initial ideological structures and the interaction dynamics. No additional external constraints are assumed. Moreover, different emergent behaviors in the limit of high participation apathy are observed.