On a Co-evolving Opinion-Leadership Model in Social Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel dynamical system modeling how opinions and leadership co-evolve in social networks, emphasizing the importance of opinion strength and social alignment for leadership emergence and stability.

Contribution

It extends the Friedkin-Johnsen model by making susceptibility to influence a dynamic leadership variable, analyzing convergence and different evolution regimes.

Findings

Leadership correlates with strong, socially aligned opinions.

The model demonstrates conditions for stable leadership emergence.

Different time-scale regimes affect opinion and leadership dynamics.

Abstract

Leadership in social groups is often a dynamic characteristic that emerges from interactions and opinion exchange. Empirical evidence suggests that individuals with strong opinions tend to gain influence, at the same time maintaining alignment with the social context is crucial for sustained leadership. Motivated by the social psychology literature that supports these empirical observations, we propose a novel dynamical system in which opinions and leadership co-evolve within a social network. Our model extends the Friedkin-Johnsen framework by making susceptibility to peer influence time-dependent, turning it into the leadership variable. Leadership strengthens when an agent holds strong yet socially aligned opinions, and declines when such alignment is lost, capturing the trade-off between conviction and social acceptance. After illustrating the emergent behavior of this complex system, we formally analyze the coupled dynamics, establishing sufficient conditions for convergence to a non-trivial equilibrium, and examining two time-scale separation regimes reflecting scenarios where opinion and leadership evolve at different speeds.