Influence Indices

Working paper du GATE 2007-05In the paper, we investigate the Hoede-Bakker index - the notion which computes the overall decisional ‘power' of a player in a social network. It is assumed that each player has an inclination (original decision) to say ‘yes' or ‘no' which, due to influence of other players, may be different from the final decision of the player. The main drawback of the Hoede-Bakker index is that it hides the actual role of the influence function, analyzing only the final decision in terms of success and failure. In this paper, we further investigate the Hoede-Bakker index, proposing an improvement which fully takes into account the mutual influence among players. A global index which distinguishes an influence degree from a ‘power' index is analyzed. We define weighted influence indices, in particular, a possibility influence index which takes into account any possibility of influence, and a certainty influence index which expresses certainty of influence. We consider different influence functions and study their properties