Emotion Model of Crowd in Mass Incidents

The paper mainly studies the problem of the forming of group emotion. A new emotion model of crowd based on emotional contagion is proposed. Based on the model, the primary factors of group emotion formation, which are the network structures of interpersonal relationship and the level of emotional dependence between individuals, are analyzed. The evolution process of crowd emotion is simulated under four types of complex network. The simulation results show that the network structure of interpersonal relationship affects the convergence time of group emotion, for example, it takes more time to convergent individuals’ emotions in the regular network than in the other three networks. Not only does the level of emotional dependence on individuals have the significant influence on the intensity of group emotion, but on the formation time of group emotion as well. This study shows that the dynamics of group emotion varies due to the level of emotional dependence and the distinct social network structure of interpersonal relationship.