Vanishing opinions in Latan\'e model of opinion formation

TL;DR

This paper uses computer simulations of the Nowak--Szamrej--Latané model with multiple opinions to analyze how noise, interaction range, and social temperature influence opinion clustering, unanimity, polarization, or randomness.

Contribution

It introduces the noise discrimination level as a new qualitative measure and explores its effects on opinion formation with multiple opinions in the Latané model.

Findings

Opinion clusters depend on noise level and interaction range.

Higher social temperature increases opinion randomness.

Number of dominant opinions can be fewer than available options.

Abstract

In this paper, the results of computer simulations based on Nowak--Szamrej--Latan\'e model with multiple (from two to five) opinions available in the system are presented. We introduce the noise discrimination level (which says how small the clusters of agents could be considered as negligible) as a quite useful quantity that allows qualitative characterization of the system. We show that depending on the introduced noise discrimination level, the range of actors' interactions (controlled indirectly by an exponent in distance scaling function, the larger the exponent the more influential the nearest neighbors are) and the information noise level (modeled as social temperature, which increases results in increase of randomness in taking the opinion by the agents), the ultimate number of the opinions (measured as the number of clusters of actors sharing the same opinion in clusters greater than the noise discrimination level) may be smaller than the number of opinions available in the system. These are observed in small and large information noise limits but result in either unanimity, or polarization, or randomization of opinions.