Emergence of moderate opinions as a consequence of group pressure

In this work, we study a continuous opinion dynamics model considering 3-agent interactions and group pressure. Agents interact in a fully-connected population, and two parameters govern the dynamics: the agents' convictions A that are homogeneous in the population, and the group pressure p. Stochastic parameters also drive the interactions. Our analytical and numerical results indicate that the model undergoes symmetry-breaking transitions at distinct critical points A for any value of p < p* = 2/3, i.e. the transition can be suppressed for sufficiently high group pressure. Such transition separates two phases: for any A < Ac, the order parameter 0 is identically null (0 = 0, a symmetric, absorbing phase), while for A > Ac, we have 0 > 0, i.e. a symmetry-broken phase (ferromagnetic). The numerical simulations also reveal that the increase of group pressure leads to a wider distribution of opinions, decreasing the extremism in the population.