By Edmund Chattoe-Brown

As part of a previous research project, I collected a sample of the Opinion Dynamics (hereafter OD) models published in JASSS that were most highly cited in JASSS. The idea here was to understand what styles of OD research were most influential in the journal. In the top 50 on 19.10.21 there were eight such articles. Five were self-contained modelling exercises (Hegselmann and Krause 2002, 58 citations, Deffuant et al. 2002, 35 citations, Salzarulo 2006, 13 citations, Deffuant 2006, 13 citations and Urbig et al. 2008, 9 citations), two were overviews of OD modelling (Flache et al. 2017, 13 citations and Sobkowicz 2009, 10 citations) and one included an OD example in an article mainly discussing the merits of cellular automata modelling (Hegselmann and Flache 1998, 12 citations). In order to get in to the top 50 on that date you had to achieve at least 7 citations. In parallel, I have been trying to identify Agent-Based Models that are validated (undergo direct comparison of real and equivalent simulated data). Based on an earlier bibliography (Chattoe-Brown 2020) which I extended to the end of 2021 for JASSS and articles which were described as validated in the highly cited articles listed above, I managed to construct a small and unsystematic sample of validated OD models. (Part of the problem with a systematic sample is that validated models are not readily searchable as a distinct category and there are too many OD models overall to make reading them all feasible. Also, I suspect, validated models just remain rare in line with the larger scale findings of Dutton and Starbuck (1971, p. 130, table 1) and discouragingly, much more recently, Angus and Hassani-Mahmooei (2015, section 4.5, figure 9). Obviously, since part of the sample was selected by total number of citations, one cannot make a comparison on that basis, so instead I have used the best possible alternative (given the limitations of the sample) and compared articles on citations per year. The problem here is that attempting validated modelling is relatively new while older articles inevitably accumulate citations however slowly. But what I was trying to discover was whether new validated models could be cited at a much higher annual rate without reaching the top 50 (or whether, conversely, older articles could have a high enough total citations to get into the top 50 without having a particularly impressive annual citation rate.) One would hope that, ultimately, validated models would tend to receive more citations than those that were not validated (but see the rather disconcerting related findings of Serra-Garcia and Gneezy 2021). Table 1 shows the results sorted by citations per year.

Article	Status	Number of JASSS Citations[1]	Number of Years[2]	Citations Per Year
Bernardes et al. 2002	Validated	1	20	0.05
Bernardes et al. 2001	Validated	2	21	0.096
Fortunato and Castellano 2007	Validated	2	15	0.13
Caruso and Castorina 2005	Validated	4	17	0.24
Chattoe-Brown 2014	Validated	2	8	0.25
Brousmiche et al. 2016	Validated	2	6	0.33
Hegselmann and Flache 1998	Non-Validated	12	24	0.5
Urbig et al. 2008	Non-Validated	9	14	0.64
Sobkowicz 2009	Non-Validated	10	13	0.77
Deffuant 2006	Non-Validated	13	16	0.81
Salzarulo 2006	Non-Validated	13	16	0.81
Duggins 2017	Validated	5	5	1
Deffuant et al. 2002	Non-Validated	35	20	1.75
Flache et al. 2017	Non-Validated	13	5	2.6
Hegselmann and Krause 2002	Non-Validated	58	20	2.9

Table 1. Annual Citation Rates for OD Articles Highly Cited in JASSS (Systematic Sample) and Validated OD Articles in or Cited in JASSS (Unsystematic Sample)

With the notable (and potentially encouraging) exception of Duggins (2017), the most recent validated OD model I have been able to discover in JASSS, the sample clearly divides into non-validated research with more citations and validated research with fewer. The position of Duggins (2017) might suggest greater recent interest in validated OD models. Unfortunately, however, qualitative analysis of the citations suggests that these are not cited as validated models per se (and thus as a potential improvement over non-validated models) but merely as part of general classes of OD model (like those involving social networks or repulsion – moving away from highly discrepant opinions). This tendency to cite validated models without acknowledging that they are validated (and what the implications of that might be) is widespread in the articles I looked at.

Obviously, there is plenty wrong with this analysis. Even looking at citations per annum we are arguably still partially sampling on the dependent variable (articles selected for being widely cited prove to be widely cited!) and the sample of validated OD models is unsystematic (though in fairness the challenges of producing a systematic sample are significant.[3]) But the aim here is to make a distinctive use of RoFASSS as a rapid mode of permanent publication and to think differently about science. If I tried to publish this in a peer reviewed journal, the amount of labour required to satisfy reviewers about the research design would probably be prohibitive (even if it were possible). As a result, the case to answer about this apparent (and perhaps undesirable) pattern in data might never see the light of day.

But by publishing quickly in RoFASSS without the filter of peer review I actively want my hypothesis to be rejected or replaced by research based on a better design (and such research may be motivated precisely by my presenting this interesting pattern with all its imperfections). When it comes to scientific progress, the chance to be clearly wrong now could be more useful than the opportunity to be vaguely right at some unknown point in the future.

Acknowledgements

This analysis was funded by the project “Towards Realistic Computational Models Of Social Influence Dynamics” (ES/S015159/1) funded by ESRC via ORA Round 5 (PI: Professor Bruce Edmonds, Centre for Policy Modelling, Manchester Metropolitan University: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FS015159%2F1).

Notes

[1] Note that the validated OD models had their citations counted manually while the high total citation articles had them counted automatically. This may introduce some comparison error but there is no reason to think that either count will be terribly inaccurate.

[2] Including the year of publication and the current year (2021).

[3] Note, however, that there are some checks and balances on sample quality. Highly successful validated OD models would have shown up independently in the top 50. There is thus an upper bound to the impact of the articles I might have missed in manually constructing my “version 1” bibliography. The unsystematic review of 47 articles by Sobkowicz (2009) also checks independently on the absence of validated OD models in JASSS to that date and confirms the rarity of such articles generally. Only four of the articles that he surveys are significantly empirical.

References

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