抄録
Increasing demands for participatory approaches of social decision-making is drawing people's interest on public opinion development, but mathematical models used for studying the process so far were insufficient. Dynamics and mechanism of public opinion development therefore were analyzed by multi-agent simulation, which is now a promising approach for analyzing complex. social systems. A simulation model was proposed based on a_decision model that includes both effects of conformity to others and private self-consciousness. Factory that may greatly affect the process were also considered: mass media, personal variation, and bias in true or false of assertion under argument. The result of simulation provided useful insights on the process of public opinion development, e.g., the society splits-into communities of positive and negative opinions, community size increases with increasing conformity to others, and public opinion becomes one-sided by the influence of mass media or bias in true or false of assertion. These findings are both good news and warning for promotion of consensus development in society.
