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arXiv · 0801.2411

Mobility and Social Network Effects on Extremist Opinions

André C. R. Martins
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Abstract

Understanding the emergence of extreme opinions and in what kind of environment they might become less extreme is a central theme in our modern globalized society. A model combining continuous opinions and observed discrete actions (CODA) capable of addressing the important issue of measuring how extreme opinions might be has been recently proposed. In this paper I show extreme opinions to arise in a ubiquitous manner in the CODA model for a multitude of social network structures. Depending on network details reducing extremism seems to be possible. However, a large number agents with extreme opinions is always observed. A significant decrease in the number of extremists can be observed by allowing agents to change their positions in the network.

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André C. R. Martins. 2008-08-11. Mobility and Social Network Effects on Extremist Opinions. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreve.78.036104

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