Friedkin-Johnsen Model with Diminishing Competition

Abstract: This letter studies the Friedkin-Johnsen (FJ) model with diminishing competition, or stubbornness. The original FJ model assumes that each agent assigns a constant competition weight to its initial opinion. In contrast, we investigate the effect of diminishing competition on the convergence point and speed of the FJ dynamics. We prove that, if the competition is uniform across agents and vanishes asymptotically, the convergence point coincides with the nominal consensus reached with no competition. However, the diminishing competition slows down convergence according to its own rate of decay. We study this phenomenon analytically and provide upper and lower bounds on the convergence rate. Further, if competition is not uniform across agents, we show that the convergence point may not coincide with the nominal consensus point. Finally, we evaluate our analytical insights numerically.