Communication is more than information sharing: The role of status-relevant knowledge

Kurschilgen, Michael; Marcin, Isabel

doi:10.1016/j.geb.2018.11.007

Cited by 11 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…because it favours them economically, or because their partisan alignment is a critical part of their identity [ 62 ]—it limits their ability to process information in an unbiased manner. While our model considers the behavioural biases of the receivers of information, it neglects the motives of the senders of information [ 86 , 87 ]. In a world that relies increasingly on highly specialized expert knowledge, while at the same time citizens’ trust in experts is being constantly undermined by populist leaders and media outlets, future work should expand our model to capture the interplay between expert senders and non-expert receivers of information.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Echo chambers and opinion dynamics explain the occurrence of vaccination hesitancy

2022

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Vaccination hesitancy is a major obstacle to achieving and maintaining herd immunity. Therefore, public health authorities need to understand the dynamics of an anti-vaccine opinion in the population. We introduce a spatially structured mathematical model of opinion dynamics with reinforcement. The model allows as an emergent property for the occurrence of echo chambers, i.e. opinion bubbles in which information that is incompatible with one’s entrenched worldview, is probably disregarded. We scale the model both to a deterministic limit and to a weak-effects limit, and obtain bifurcations, phase transitions and the invariant measure. Fitting the model to measles and meningococci vaccination coverage across Germany, reveals that the emergence of echo chambers dynamics explains the occurrence and persistence of the anti-vaccination opinion in allowing anti-vaxxers to isolate and to ignore pro-vaccination facts. We predict and compare the effectiveness of different policies aimed at influencing opinion dynamics in order to increase vaccination uptake. According to our model, measures aiming at reducing the salience of partisan anti-vaccine information sources would have the largest effect on enhancing vaccination uptake. By contrast, measures aiming at reducing the reinforcement of vaccination deniers are predicted to have the smallest impact.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Echo chambers and opinion dynamics explain the occurrence of vaccination hesitancy

2022

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“…because it favors them economically, or because their partisan alignment is a critical part of their identity [37] -it limits their ability to process information in an unbiased manner. While our reinforcement model captures the behavioral biases of the receivers of information, it neglects the motives of the senders of information [45,34]. In a world that relies increasingly on highly specialized expert knowledge, while at the same time citizens' trust in experts is being constantly undermined by populist leaders and media outlets, future work should expand our model to capture the interplay between expert senders and non-expert receivers of information.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A model of opinion dynamics with echo chambers explains the spatial distribution of vaccine hesitancy

Müller¹,

Tellier²,

Kurschilgen³

2021

Preprint

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Vaccination hesitancy is a major obstacle to achieving and maintaining herd immunity. It is therefore of prime importance for public health authorities to understand the dynamics of an anti-vaccine opinion in the population. We introduce a novel mathematical model of opinion dynamics with spatial reinforcement, which can generate echo chambers, i.e. opinion bubbles in which information that is incompatible with one's entrenched worldview, is likely disregarded. In a first mathematical part, we scale the model both to a deterministic limit and to a weak-effects limit, and obtain bifurcations, phase transitions, and the invariant measure. In a second part, we fit our model to measles and meningococci vaccination coverage across 413 districts in Germany. We reveal that strong echo chambers explain the occurrence and persistence of the antivaccination opinion. We predict and compare the effectiveness of different policies aimed at influencing opinion dynamics in order to increase vaccination uptake.

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“…For a recent review, see Vostroknutov ( 2020 ). Another large strand of literature models the effect of (moral) identity on people’s behavior as a Bayesian preference-signaling game (Bénabou and Tirole 2006 , 2011 ; Grossman and van der Weele 2017 ; Kurschilgen and Marcin 2019 ).…”

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confidence: 99%

Moral awareness polarizes people’s fairness judgments

Kurschilgen¹

2023

Soc Choice Welf

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How does moral awareness affect people’s fairness judgments? Using a simple model of identity utility, I predict that if individuals differ in their personal fairness ideals (equality versus efficiency), reflecting over what one thinks is right should not only make people’s choices less selfish but also more polarized. On the other hand, people’s desire for conforming with the behavior of their peers could help mitigate polarization. I test these conjectures in a laboratory experiment, in which participants can pursue different fairness ideals. I exogenously vary (i) whether participants are prompted to state their moral opinions behind the veil of ignorance, and (ii) whether they are informed about the behavior of their peers. I find that moral introspection makes choices more polarized, reflecting even more divergent moral opinions. The increase in polarization coincides largely with a widening of revealed gender differences as introspection makes men’s choices more efficiency-oriented and women’s more egalitarian. Disclosing the descriptive norm of the situation is not capable of mitigating the polarization.

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Communication is more than information sharing: The role of status-relevant knowledge

Cited by 11 publications

References 35 publications

Echo chambers and opinion dynamics explain the occurrence of vaccination hesitancy

Echo chambers and opinion dynamics explain the occurrence of vaccination hesitancy

A model of opinion dynamics with echo chambers explains the spatial distribution of vaccine hesitancy

Moral awareness polarizes people’s fairness judgments

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