Physica A, 287, 631-643 (2000)
Abstract of the article

Phase transitions as a persistent feature of groups with leaders in models of opinion formation


Krzysztof Kacperski 1,2 Janusz A. Hołyst 1,2
1 Max Planck Institute for Physics of Complex Systems, Nöthnitzer Str. 38, D-01187 Dresden, Germany
2 Faculty of Physics, Warsaw University of Technology, Koszykowa 75, PL-00-662 Warsaw, Poland

A class of models of opinion formation based on the concept of cellular automata and the theory of social impact is studied, in particular the case when a strong leader and external impact are present. The rapid changes of the opinion distribution with a continuous change of a system parameter, which was previously observed for the model with geometric structure, prove to be present also for much larger class of mutual interaction architectures. We study random connections with di erent probability distributions. The theoretical results obtained in the framework of mean eld approximation are con rmed by the numerical simulations of the model.