Agent-based opinion formation modeling in social network: a perspective of social psychology

Most previous works on opinion modeling lack the simultaneous study of individual mental activity and group behavior. This paper is motivated to propose an agent-based online opinion formation model based on attitude change theory, group behavior theory and evolutionary game theory in the perspective of sociology and psychology. In this model, there are three factors influencing the persuasion process, including credibility of the leaders, characteristic of the recipient, and group environment. The proposed model is applied to Twitter to analyze the influence of topic type, parameter changing, and opinion leaders on opinion formation. Experimental results show that the opinion evolution of controversial topic shows greater uncertainty and sustainability. The ratio of benefit to cost has a significant impact on opinion formation and a moderate ratio will result in the longest relaxation time or most unified global opinions. Furthermore, celebrities with a large number of followers are more capable of influencing public opinion than experts. This paper enriches the researches on opinion formation modeling, and the results provide managerial insights for business on public relations and market prediction.