Proceedings of the 16th International Conference

on Computational and Mathematical Methods

in Science and Engineering, CMMSE 2016
4–8 July, 2016.

Consensus formation in a system of difference equations

modeling controversial opinion dynamics with pairwise
interactions

M. G. Medina-Guevara1 , J. E. Macı́as-Dı́az 2 , A. Gallegos1 and H.

Vargas-Rodrı́guez1
1 Departamento de Ciencias Exactas y Tecnologı́a, Centro Universitario de los Lagos,
Universidad de Guadalajara
2 Departamento de Matemáticas y Fı́sica, Universidad Autónoma de Aguascalientes
emails: MGuadalupe.Medina@lagos.udg.mx, jemacias@correo.uaa.mx,
gallegos@culagos.udg.mx, hvargas@culagos.udg.mx

Abstract

In this work, we propose a discrete system to model the dynamics of opinions on

controversial subjects. The social network consists of a finite number of agents with
pairwise interactions at discrete times. Meanwhile, the opinion of each agent is updated
following a general nonlinear law which considers parameters identified as the personal
cultural baggages of each of the members. We establish conditions that guarantee the
existence of global attracting points (strong consensus) and intervals (weak consensus).
Moreover, we notice that these conditions are independent of the weight matrix and
the number of agents in the network. One particular scenario modeling extremist and
centrist postures is investigated numerically in order to confirm the validity of the
analytical results.
Key words: Consensus formation, controversial opinion dynamics, stability analysis,
strong and weak consensus

1 Introduction
The specialized literature has already proposed various mathematical models to investigate
the dynamics of opinions in social networks, some of the most popular being the models
proposed by Sznajd-Weron and Sznajd [8], the voter model in complex networks [7], the

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models investigated by Deffuant et al. [1] and the Hegselmann–Krause system [3]. In all of
these models, the opinion of each agent is a consequence of interactions between members
of the social network (for example, such interactions are considered in the weights matrix of
the De Groot model [2], and Hegselmann–Krause system). Moreover, the determination of
conditions that give rise to consensus has been a common topic of many research articles,
including those cited above.
It is important to point out that the notion of consensus in sociology has been compared
in relevance to the concept of energy in physics [6], and the investigation of the existence
of consensus has been carried out on discrete spaces, voter models and bounded confidence
systems alike. However, when personal values and beliefs are directly involved in an opinion,
the postures are often defensive and the opinions steady, and many of the classical models
become inapplicable in such circumstances. In view of those limitations, the purpose of
this work is to investigate the formation of consensus in a new model that describes the
dynamics of opinions on controversial topics.
Opinion dynamics has been frequently modeled using fully discrete dynamical systems
[4]. Indeed, realistic settings actually consider the presence of a finite number of agents as
well as discrete interactions within finite subgroups of the social network at discrete instants
of time, whence the use of systems of coupled difference equations is justified in the practice.
In the present study, we will propose a system of difference equations to model the dynamics
of opinions on controversial subjects. Our model may conveniently incorporate attractors
and repellers in order to describe strong postures of the agents, together with an individual
parameter proposed previously in [9]. The inclusion of that additional parameter gives the
advantage of mimicking the existence of strong personal attitudes and values often motivated
by hard changing cultural paradigms in each of the agents of the network. In that work,
the author justified its use by social and/or environmental reasons, but we will employ
it in the present manuscript to prescribe the cultural factors as well as personal values,
knowledge, predisposition, etc. In summary, the parameter used in [9] will be employed
here to represent strong attitudes acquired during the lifetime of each individual, and we
will denominate it the cultural baggage or, simply, the baggage of the agent.

2 Preliminaries
2.1 Nomenclature
Throughout this manuscript, we will suppose that the temporal interval [0, ∞) is partitioned
into a (not necessarily uniform) sequence of points 0 = t0 < t1 . . . < tn < . . . , for n ∈
Z+ ∪ {0}. We will assume that X is a connected subset of R that represents the space of
opinions. Meanwhile, the set K ⊆ R will represent the collection of possible values of the
cultural baggages of the agents, and it will be called the space of baggages. In this work,
we will fix an even number N of agents conforming the population under investigation,

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and let ΩN = {1, 2, . . . , N }. At the nth temporal step, the ith agent will be completely
characterized by an ordered pair xin = (xin , κi ) consisting of an opinion xin ∈ X and a
baggage κi ∈ K, for each i ∈ ΩN .
Following the approach of [2], the social network under consideration will be described
by the N × N square matrix of absolute weights, cij .
For each pair of indexes i, j ∈ ΩN , the number cij will represent the trust that the ith
agent has on the opinion of the jth agent. The weights do not vary in time, and must satisfy
the condition N j=1 cij = 1, for each i ∈ ΩN . Moreover, we will assume that the inequalities
0 ≤ cij < 1 and 0 < cii ≤ 1 hold for any pair of different indexes i, j ∈ ΩN .
Throughout, we let ǫ be a positive number which will be called the coefficient of affinity
or the confidence level [3], and it will be used to restrict the interaction between the agents
of the population. We say that the opinions of the ith and the jth agents at time tn are
affine if |xin − xjn | < ǫ, for each i, j ∈ ΩN and n ∈ Z+ ∪ {0}. Equivalently, we say simply
that xin and xjn are affine.
Let Ξ : X × K → R used to model a process of internal reflection for the individual
opinion update of the agents of the population according to their values and attitudes. For
analytical reasons, we may assume that X is an open interval of R. Under these conditions,
the function Ξ will be differentiable in the first variable.

2.2 Recursive model

We propose an iterative model in order to simulate the dynamics of the opinions of the
agents. At the initial time, we provide an initial stochastic matrix cij and set initial con-
ditions for each member of the population. Following the approaches in [1], only binary
interactions between members are allowed. Thus, at each iteration at most N/2 pairs of
agents are randomly chosen to exchange opinions. Let n ∈ Z+ ∪ {0} and let i, j ∈ ΩN
be such that i = j. We consider two possible scenarios, depending on the affinity of the
opinions of xin and xjn :
• Opinions are affine. Under these circumstances, the opinions for the (n + 1)st
temporal step will be defined through
cij

xin+1 = aii Ξ(xin , κi ) + aij xjn , aii = ciic+c
ii
, aij = cii +c ,
j i j j where cji
ij
cjj
ij
(1)
xn+1 = aji xn + ajj Ξ(xn , κ ), aji = cjj +cji , ajj = cjj +cji
Clearly, aii and aij represent respectively the relative weight that xin gives to her
own opinion, and to the opinion of xjn . Obviously, aii + aij = 1, 0 < aii ≤ 1 and
0 ≤ aij < 1. Similar remarks can be drawn on ajj and aji .
• Opinions are not affine. In this case, the new opinions are updated considering
individual baggages exclusively. In other words, we let
xin+1 = Ξ(xin , κi ), xjn+1 = Ξ(xjn , κj ). (2)

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The agents interacting through these iterative rules together with the particular parametric
values and initial conditions, will be referred to as a social network. Throughout, we will
suppose that the network is totally connected in the sense that it has no isolated components.

Acknowledgements
This work was partially supported by the National Council for Science and Technology of
Mexico (CONACYT).

References
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[2] M. H. De Groot, Reaching a Consensus J. Amer. Statist. Assoc. 69 (1974), pp. 118
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[3] R. Hegselmann, and U. Krause Opinion dynamics and bounded confidence: models,
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[4] U. Krause Arithmethic-geometric discrete systems, Journal of Difference equations

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[5] F.R. Marotto, Introduction to mathematical modeling using discrete dynamical sys-
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[6] T.J. Scheff, Toward a sociological model of consensus, American Sociological Review
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[9] T. Yamano, An opinion formation dynamics with logistic map and its complexity,
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