Olle Häggström: A stochastic model for consensus formation in social networks

We discuss the so-called Deffuant model for social interaction, where individuals have opinions represented by numbers between 0 and 1, and whenever two individuals interact they take a step towards equalizing their opinion, unless their opinions differ beyond a fixed amount, in which case they make no adjustment. In particular, we reprove and sharpen the recent result of Lanchier which indentifies the critical value for consensus formation in the Deffuant model on Z.