The influence of persuasion in opinion formation and polarization

Abstract

-We present a model that explores the influence of persuasion in a population of agents with positive and negative opinion orientations. The opinion of each agent is represented by an integer number k that expresses its level of agreement on a given issue, from totally against k = −M to totally in favor k = M . Same-orientation agents persuade each other with probability p, becoming more extreme, while opposite-orientation agents become more moderate as they reach a compromise with probability q. The population initially evolves to (a) a polarized state for r = p/q > 1, where opinions' distribution is peaked at the extreme values k = ±M , or (b) a centralized state for r < 1, with most opinions around k = ±1. When r ≫ 1, polarization lasts for a time that diverges as r M ln N , where N is the population's size. Finally, an extremist consensus (k = M or −M ) is reached in a time that scales as r −1 for r ≪ 1.

Opinion dynamics in two dimensions: domain coarsening leads to stable bi-polarization and anomalous scaling exponents

“…The data points of Fig. 4(c) collapse into a single curve that seems to approach the quadratic behavior r 2 as r becomes large (dashed line), which surprisingly agrees with that predicted by the MF expression τ MF ∼ r 2 ln N derived in [14]. However, this logarithmic increase of τ MF with N in MF is much slower than the non-linear increase τ ∼ N 1.64 obtained in lattices.…”

“…We consider the opinion formation dynamics of the model proposed by La Rocca et al [14] on a 2D square lattice of N = L 2 sites, where L is the linear size of the lattice. Each site is occupied by an agent who can interact with its four nearest neighbors, and can take one of four possible opinion states k = −2, −1, 1 or 2 that represents its position on a political issue, from a negative extreme k = −2 (a negative extremist) to a positive extreme k = 2 (a positive extremist), taking moderate values k = −1, 1 (a moderate).…”

“…This could intensify the individuals' views and make them more extreme in their believes. Motivated by this work, La Rocca et al [14] have recently introduced a model that incorporates the mechanisms of homophily and persuasion in a simple way, and that is able to generate desired levels of bi-polarization. We refer to this model as the "M-model" from now on.…”

Role of voting intention in public opinion polarization

“…This would imply that polarization is quite stable in populations with narrow-minded individuals that only take into account its own opinion when interacting with others, reinforcing their previous believes and adopting more extreme viewpoints. This result is akin to that obtained in related models for opinion formation [11][12][13][14] that include a reinforcement mechanism by which pairs of individuals with the same opinion orientation (both in favor or both against a given political issue) are more likely to interact and become more extremists. Even though the propensity model studied in this article does not include this mechanism implicitly, it is able to capture the same phenomenology by implementing a simple interaction rule that consider pairwise interactions between individuals as independent of the opinion group they belong to.…”

Modeling opinion dynamics: Theoretical analysis and continuous approximation

“…There are many approaches for modelling the dynamics of human opinions, and they all differ in their focus and complexity ( [1][2][3][4][5]). G. Deffuant et al [3] proposed a model of continuos opinions (D-W) based mainly on two ingredients: compromise and bounded confidence (d).…”