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arXiv · 1905.04448

Influencing Opinions of Heterogeneous Populations over Finite Time Horizons

Arunabh Saxena·Bhumesh Kumar·Anmol Gupta·Neeraja Sahasrabudhe·Sharayu Moharir
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Abstract

In this work, we focus on strategies to influence the opinion dynamics of a well-connected society. We propose a generalization of the popular voter model. This variant of the voter model can capture a wide range of individuals including strong-willed individuals whose opinion evolution is independent of their neighbors as well as conformist/rebel individuals who tend to adopt the opinion of the majority/minority. Motivated by political campaigns which aim to influence opinion dynamics by the end of a fixed deadline, we focus on influencing strategies for finite time horizons. We characterize the nature of optimal influencing strategies as a function of the nature of individuals forming the society. Using this, we show that for a society consisting of predominantly strong-willed/rebel individuals, the optimal strategy is to influence towards the end of the finite time horizon, whereas, for a society predominantly consisting of conformist individuals who try to adopt the opinion of the majority, it could be optimal to influence in the initial phase of the finite time horizon.

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Arunabh Saxena, Bhumesh Kumar, Anmol Gupta, Neeraja Sahasrabudhe, Sharayu Moharir. 2019-05-11. Influencing Opinions of Heterogeneous Populations over Finite Time Horizons. https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.04448

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