A numerical trip to social psychology: long-living states of cognitive dissonance

Abstract

The Heider theory of cognitive dissonance in social groups, formulated recently in terms of differential equations, is generalized here for the case of asymmetric interpersonal ties. The space of initial states is penetrated by starting the time evolution several times with random initial conditions. Numerical results show the fat-tailed distribution of the time when the dissonance is removed. For small groups (N=3) we found some characteristic patterns of the long-living states. There, mutual relations of one of the pairs differ in sign. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.