# Opinion evolution in time-varying social influence networks with prejudiced agents

## TL;DR

This paper analyzes opinion dynamics in social influence networks with prejudiced agents, extending existing models to account for time-varying influence structures and examining their properties.

## Contribution

It introduces new properties of the Friedkin-Johnsen model and extends it to networks with changing influence links and weights.

## Key findings

- Established new properties of the Friedkin-Johnsen model.
- Extended the model to time-varying influence networks.
- Analyzed the impact of prejudices on opinion formation.

## Abstract

Investigation of social influence dynamics requires mathematical models that are "simple" enough to admit rigorous analysis, and yet sufficiently "rich" to capture salient features of social groups. Thus, the mechanism of iterative opinion pooling from (DeGroot, 1974), which can explain the generation of consensus, was elaborated in (Friedkin and Johnsen, 1999) to take into account individuals' ongoing attachments to their initial opinions, or prejudices. The "anchorage" of individuals to their prejudices may disable reaching consensus and cause disagreement in a social influence network. Further elaboration of this model may be achieved by relaxing its restrictive assumption of a time-invariant influence network. During opinion dynamics on an issue, arcs of interpersonal influence may be added or subtracted from the network, and the influence weights assigned by an individual to his/her neighbors may alter. In this paper, we establish new important properties of the (Friedkin and Johnsen, 1999) opinion formation model, and also examine its extension to time-varying social influence networks.