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Van Kampen's expansion approach in an opinion formation model

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An Erratum to this article was published on 01 July 2007

Abstract.

We analyze a simple opinion formation model consisting of two parties, A and B, and a group I, of undecided agents. We assume that the supporters of parties A and B do not interact among them, but only interact through the group I, and that there is a nonzero probability of a spontaneous change of opinion (\(A \leftrightarrows I\), \(B \leftrightarrows I\)). From the master equation, and via van Kampen's Ω-expansion approach, we have obtained the “macroscopic” evolution equation, as well as the Fokker-Planck equation governing the fluctuations around the deterministic behavior. Within the same approach, we have also obtained information about the typical relaxation behavior of small perturbations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Física de Cantabria, Universidad de Cantabria and CSIC, 390005-, Santander, Spain

    M. S. de la Lama, I. G. Szendro & H. S. Wio

  2. Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal de Rio Grande do Sul, 91501-970, Porto Alegre, Brazil

    J. R. Iglesias

  3. Programa de Pós Graduação em Economia, Universidade Federal de Rio Grande do Sul, Av. João Pessoa 52, 90040-000, Porto Alegre, Brazil

    J. R. Iglesias

Authors
  1. M. S. de la Lama
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  2. I. G. Szendro
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  3. J. R. Iglesias
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  4. H. S. Wio
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to M. S. de la Lama.

Additional information

An erratum to this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2007-00206-4.

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de la Lama, M., Szendro, I., Iglesias, J. et al. Van Kampen's expansion approach in an opinion formation model. Eur. Phys. J. B 51, 435–442 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2006-00232-8

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