Diffusive and Anti-Diffusive Behavior for Kinetic Models of Opinion Dynamics

Abstract

In the present paper, we study a class of nonlinear integro-differential equations of a kinetic type describing the dynamics of opinion for two types of societies: conformist ( σ = 1 ) and anti-conformist ( σ = − 1 ). The essential role is played by the symmetric nature of interactions. The class may be related to the mesoscopic scale of description. This means that we are going to statistically describe an individual state of an agent of the system. We show that the corresponding equations result at the macroscopic scale in two different pictures: anti-diffusive ( σ = 1 ) and diffusive ( σ = − 1 ). We provide a rigorous result on the convergence. The result captures the macroscopic behavior resulting from the mesoscopic one. In numerical examples, we observe both unipolar and bipolar behavior known in political sciences.

Keywords

• opinion dynamics
• symmetric interactions
• kinetic equations
• integro-differential equations
• conformist society
• individualistic society