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The Influence of Lobbies: Analyzing Group Consensus from a Physics Approach
Version 1
: Received: 2 January 2024 / Approved: 3 January 2024 / Online: 3 January 2024 (08:00:43 CET)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Merlone, U.; Dal Forno, A. The Influence of Lobbies: Analyzing Group Consensus from a Physics Approach. Physics 2024, 6, 659-673. Merlone, U.; Dal Forno, A. The Influence of Lobbies: Analyzing Group Consensus from a Physics Approach. Physics 2024, 6, 659-673.
Abstract
In this paper we study the influence of a small group of agents (i.e., a lobby) who is trying to spread a rumor in a population using the well known model suggested by Galam. In particular, lobbies are modeled as subgroups of people who strategically choose their seating in the social space in order to protect their opinion and influence the others. We consider different social gatherings and simulate the opinion dynamics comparing situations in which a lobby is present to those without lobby. Our results show how the lobby can influence the opinion dynamics in terms of the prevailing opinion and the mean time to reach unanimity. The approach we follow overcomes some of the issues that behavioral economics and psychology have recently encountered in terms of replicability. This approach relates to the methodological revolution which is slowly changing the perspective in psychology.
Keywords
opinion dynamics; sociophysics; physics models; social influence
Subject
Physical Sciences, Other
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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