  In the spirit of behavioral finance, we study the process of opinion
formation among investors using a variant of the 2D Voter Model with a tunable
social temperature. Further, a feedback acting on the temperature is
introduced, such that social temperature reacts to market imbalances and thus
becomes time dependent. In this toy market model, social temperature represents
nervousness of agents towards market imbalances representing speculative risk.
We use the knowledge about the discontinuous Generalized Voter Model phase
transition to determine critical fixed points. The system exhibits metastable
phases around these fixed points characterized by structured lattice states,
with intermittent excursions away from the fixed points. The statistical
mechanics of the model is characterized and its relation to dynamics of opinion
formation among investors in real markets is discussed.
