LAUSR

Abstract Current opinion formation models typically assume that two individuals (agents) will communicate with each other only if the distance between their opinions is less than a threshold called the bound of confidence. However, in many social situations, an individual’s opinion formation and expression may be different because the individual feels pressured to express an opinion similar to the public opinion in the group. To model this situation, we propose a bounded confidence plus group pressure model, in which each individual forms an inner opinion relative to the bound of confidence and expresses an opinion, taking group pressure into consideration. We theoretically demonstrate that a group with all individuals facing group pressure can reach a consensus in finite time. We further consider the situation of a mixed group with both pressured and non-pressured individuals, to study how the group pressure level and the group size can affect opinion dynamics. We find that the consensus threshold e c is significantly reduced in the modified model, and that group pressure does not always help to promote consensus in a mixed group; instead, consensus is related to the confidence bound.