Sentiment Contagion Based on the Modified SOSa-SPSa Model

Sentiment contagion is similar to an infectious disease that spreads in a crowd. In this study, we extend the proposed SOSa-SPSa model (susceptible-optimistic-susceptible and susceptible-pessimistic-susceptible) by considering the interaction between optimists and pessimists. Simulation results show that our model is reasonable and can better explain the entire contagion process by considering three groups of people. The recovery speed of pessimists has an obvious regulative effect on the number of pessimists and the possibility of optimists coming in contact with pessimists to be infected as pessimism plays a greater role than that of reverting to susceptibility. The number of pessimists is positively related to the possibility that optimists come in contact with pessimists to become pessimistic but is negatively related to the possibility of the other way around. When the speed of spontaneous generation is slow, the number of pessimists sharply increases. However, the increase is not so apparent when the speed of spontaneous generation reaches a certain number.