The dynamics of opinion in hierarchical organizations

We study the mutual influence of authority and persuasion in the flow of opinions. We describe a simple model with no social mobility, where each agent belongs to a class in the hierarchy and has also a persuasion capability. Agents use the force of its persuasion to propagate their opinions; however a high-rank agent can also use its authority to impose its opinion on other ones. The model is studied analytically within a mean field approximation and by means of numerical simulations. In the case of a three authority level hierarchy the agreement between the two approaches is excellent. We obtain a phase diagram identifying the relative frequency of the prevailing opinions, and find that the stratum where the dominant opinion arises from is strongly dependent on the relative population of each hierarchy level. The time evolution shows that conflicting opinions polarize after a short transient.