This paper is devoted to the application of the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics to social (political) science. By using the quantum dynamical equations we model the process of decision making in US elections. The crucial point we attempt to make is that the voter's mental state can be represented as a superposition of two possible choices for either republicans or democrats. However, reality dictates a more complicated situation: typically a voter participates in two elections, i.e. the congress and the presidential elections. In both elections he/she has to decide between two choices. This very feature of the US election system requires that the mental state is represented by a 2-qubit state corresponding to the superposition of 4 different choices (e.g. for republicans in the congress; for the president as a democrat). The main issue of this paper is to describe the dynamics of the voters' mental states taking in account the mental and socio-political environment. What is truly novel in this paper is that instead of using Schrödinger's equation to describe the dynamics in an absence of interactions, we here apply the quantum master equation. This equation describes quantum decoherence, i.e., resolution from superposition to a definite choice.
7We propose a model of parties' dynamical decision-making related 8 to becoming a member of a coalition or pursuing a competitive strat-9 egy. Our approach is based on the mathematical formalism of quan-10 tum information theory. The devised model has no direct relation 11 to quantum physics, only its mathematical apparatus and methodol-12 ogy are applied, in particular the quantum probability and the the-
We present a general model of the process of decision making based on the representation of the basic behavioral variables with the aid of an algebra of qubit creation-annihilation operators, adopted from the quantum information theory. In contrast to the genuine quantum physical systems, which are divided into either bosons or fermions and modeled with the aid of operators, satisfying canonical commutation or anti-commutation relations, decision makers preferences for possible actions are constructed with the aid of operators satisfying the socalled qubit commutation relations. Systems described by operators, satisfying such commutation relations, combine the features of bosons and fermions. Thus, one of the basic consequences of the presented model is that decision makers mimic the combined bosonic-fermionic behavior. By using the algebra of qubit creation-annihilation operators, we proceed with the construction of the concrete operators, describing the process of decision making. In particular, the generators of the quantum Markov dynamics, which is used for modeling human decision making process, are expressed as polynomials of the qubit creation-annihilation operators. The devised coefficients have a natural cognitive and social meaning.
We search to devise a new paradigm borrowed from concepts and mathematical tools of quantum physics, to model the decision-making process of the US electorate. The statistical data of the election outcomes in the period between 2008 and 2014 is analysed, in order to explore in more depth the emergence of the so-called divided government. There is an increasing urge in the political literature which indicates that preference reversal (strictly speaking the violation of the transitivity axiom) is a consequence of the so-called non-separability phenomenon (i.e. a strong interrelation of choices). In the political science literature, non-separable behaviour is characterized by a conditioning of decisions on the outcomes of some issues of interest. An additional source of preference reversal is ascribed to the time dynamics of the voters' cognitive states, in the context of new upcoming political information. As we discuss in this paper, the primary source of political information can be attributed to the mass media. In order to shed more light on the phenomenon of preference reversal among the US electorate, we accommodate the obtained statistical data in a classical probabilistic (Kolmogorovian) scheme. Based on the obtained results, we attribute the strong ties between the voters non-separable decisions that cannot be explained by conditioning with the Bayes scheme, to the quantum phenomenon of entanglement. Second, we compute the degree of interference of voters' belief states with the aid of the quantum analogue of the formula of total probability. Lastly, a model, based on the quantum master equation, to incorporate the impact of the mass media bath is proposed.
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