  This study considers a variant of the bounded confidence opinion formation
model wherein the probability of opinion assimilation is dependent on the
relative similarity of opinions. Agents are located on a social network and
decide whether or not they adopt the opinion of one of the neighbors (called a
role agent). Opinion assimilation is more (less) likely to occur when the
distance from the opinion of the role agent is smaller (larger) than the
average opinion distance from other neighbors. Thus, assimilation probability
is reliant not only on opinion proximity with the role agent considered in
conventional models but also on relative similarity that considers other
neighbors. The simulation results demonstrate that large weights on relative
similarity in determining assimilation probability increase the size of the
largest opinion cluster. The size of the threshold parameter of the bounded
confidence model displays inverse-U relationships with the largest cluster
size. The findings imply that consideration of relative opinion similarity, as
observed in recent empirical studies, prevents polarization into small opinion
clusters.
