Inflexibility and independence: Phase transitions in the majority-rule model

TL;DR

This paper investigates opinion dynamics with conformity, nonconformity, and inflexibility, revealing phase transitions akin to the Ising model through simulations and analytical methods.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive model combining three social behaviors and analyzes their collective critical phenomena, highlighting universality class similarities.

Findings

Order-disorder phase transitions observed

Transitions belong to the Ising universality class

Analytical calculations support simulation results

Abstract

In this work we study opinion formation in a population participating of a public debate with two distinct choices. We considered three distinct mechanisms of social interactions and individuals' behavior: conformity, nonconformity and inflexibility. The conformity is ruled by the majority-rule dynamics, whereas the nonconformity is introduced in the population as an independent behavior, implying the failure to attempted group influence. Finally, the inflexible agents are introduced in the population with a given density. These individuals present a singular behavior, in a way that their stubbornness makes them reluctant to change their opinions. We consider these effects separately and all together, with the aim to analyze the critical behavior of the system. We performed numerical simulations in some lattice structures and for distinct population sizes, and our results suggest that the different formulations of the model undergo order-disorder phase transitions in the same universality class of the Ising model. Some of our results are complemented by analytical calculations.