Abstract: In social networks,individual attributes exert a pivotal influence on the evolution of group opinions.To delve into this phenomenon,this paper extends the traditional Hegselmann-Krause(HK) model by incorporating two parameters:individual sensitivity to opinion divergence and the degree of trust in opinion leaders,proposes a new model for opinion dynamics.Individual sensitivity to opinion disparity refers to the degree to which individuals are sensitive to the opinion differences of others when updating their own views.This sensitivity is quantified by a sensitivity coefficient,with a higher coefficient indicating a greater propensity for individuals to communicate and interact with others whose views are close to their own.Such a mechanism may precipitate opinion polarization,as individuals are more inclined to interact with those sharing similar perspectives,thereby reinforcing their existing opinions.The trust individuals place in opinion leaders describe the degree to which individuals rely on opinion leaders when forming their opinions.In the model,each individual may accept the influence of opinion leaders’ opinions with different levels of trust.The paper first conducts a brief theoretical analysis of the model and then explores the impact of these two attributes on opinion evolution through simulation experiments in scale-free networks.The results show that the higher the sensitivity of individuals to opinion differences,the greater the divergence of opinion values and the longer the convergence time.The higher the trust individuals place in opinion leaders,the faster the group opinions will converge towards the opinions of the opi-nion leaders.Subsequently,the paper increases the number of opinion leaders and constructs an improved HK model with two opinion leaders.Through simulation experiments,the paper analyzes the impact of the proportion of individuals receiving opinions from opinion leaders and the trust individuals place in opinion leaders on opinion evolution.The experimental results indicate that the higher the trust individuals place in opinion leaders,the more easily the group opinions will align with the opinions of the opinion leaders,and the faster the convergence speed of group opinions.Meanwhile,the higher the proportion of individuals recei-ving opinions from opinion leaders,the more easily the evolution process of group opinions will be dominated by the opinions of the opinion leaders,and the final stable state of group opinions will be closer to the opinions of the opinion leaders.

Key words: Opinion dynamics, Hegselmann-Krause model, Opinion divergence, Individual sensitivity, Opinion leaders