The impact of hypocrisy on opinion formation: A dynamic model.

ABSTRACT: Humans have a demonstrated tendency to copy or imitate the behavior and attitude of others and actively influence each other's opinions. In plenty of empirical contexts, publicly revealed opinions are not necessarily in line with internal opinions, causing complex social influence dynamics. We study to what extent hypocrisy is sustained during opinion formation and how hidden opinions change the convergence to consensus in a group. We build and analyze a modified version of the voter model with hypocrisy in a complete graph with a neutral competition between two alternatives. We compare the process from various initial conditions, varying the proportions between the two opinions in the external (revealed) and internal (hidden) layer. According to our results, hypocrisy always prolongs the

SUBMITTER: Gastner MT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6594623 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature