Contrarian Majority rule model with external oscillating propaganda and individual inertias

Abstract

We study the Galam majority rule dynamics with contrarian behavior and an oscillating external propaganda, in a population of agents that can adopt one of two possible opinions. In an iteration step, a random agent interacts with other three random agents and takes the majority opinion among the agents with probability $p(t)$ (majority behavior) or the opposite opinion with probability $1-p(t)$ (contrarian behavior). The probability of following the majority rule $p(t)$ varies with the temperature $T$ and is coupled to a time-dependent oscillating field that mimics a mass media propaganda, in a way that agents are more likely to adopt the majority opinion when it is aligned with the sign of the field. We investigate the dynamics of this model on a complete graph and find various regimes as $T$ is varied. A transition temperature $T_c$ separates a bimodal oscillatory regime for $T<T_c$ where the population's mean opinion $m$ oscillates around a positive or a negative value, from a unimodal oscillatory regime for $T>T_c$ in which $m$ oscillates around zero. These regimes are characterized by the distribution of residence times that exhibits a unique peak for a resonance temperature $T^*$, where the response of the system is maximum. An insight into these results is given by a mean-field approach, which also shows that $T^*$ and $T_c$ are closely related.