Higher order interactions destroy phase transitions in Deffuant opinion dynamics model

Abstract Most opinion dynamics models are based on pairwise interactions. However in many real situations, discussions take place within groups of people. Here, we define a higher order Deffuant model by generalizing the original interaction for bounded-confidence opinion-dynamics to interactions involving group agents size k . The generalized is naturally encoded hypergraph. We study this different hypergraph topologies, from random ensembles, spatially embedded hyper-lattices. show that including induces drastic change onset consensus hypergraphs; instead sharp phase transition, characteristic dyadic model, system undergoes smooth independent crossover consensus, as confidence value increases. This phenomenon absent regular hypergraphs, which conserve transition.