Follow the Leader: Herding Behavior in Heterogeneous Populations

TL;DR

This paper investigates how hierarchical influence and time scale separation can lead to spontaneous leadership and herding behavior in large, heterogeneous populations, marking a phase transition from diffusive to herding states.

Contribution

It introduces a model showing that hierarchical influence combined with time scale separation induces a phase transition to herding behavior in opinion dynamics.

Findings

Identification of conditions for phase transition to herding behavior

Demonstration of spontaneous leadership emergence

Analysis of influence hierarchy effects on opinion spread

Abstract

Here we study the emergence of spontaneous leadership in large populations. In standard models of opinion dynamics, herding behavior is only obeyed at the local scale due to the interaction of single agents with their neighbors; while at the global scale, such models are governed by purely diffusive processes. Surprisingly, in this paper we show that the combination of a strong separation of time scales within the population and a hierarchical organization of the influences of some agents on the others induces a phase transition between a purely diffusive phase, as in the standard case, and a herding phase where a fraction of the agents self-organize and lead the global opinion of the whole population.