Related papers: A bare-bones mathematical model of radicalization
Understanding the social conditions that tend to increase or decrease polarization is important for many reasons. We study a network-structured agent-based model of opinion dynamics, extending a model previously introduced by Flache and…
A society of agents, with ideological positions, or "opinions" measured by real values ranging from $-\infty$ (the "far left") to $+\infty$ (the "far right"), is considered. At fixed (unit) time intervals agents repeatedly reconsider and…
We develop a model of wishful thinking that incorporates the costs and benefits of biased beliefs. We establish the connection between distorted beliefs and risk, revealing how wishful thinking can be understood in terms of risk measures.…
This paper provides a novel summary measure of ideological polarization in the American public based on the joint distribution of survey responses. Intuitively, polarization is maximized when views are concentrated at opposing extremes with…
Modeling and analyzing security of networked systems is an important problem in the emerging Science of Security and has been under active investigation. In this paper, we propose a new approach towards tackling the problem. Our approach is…
In light of increasing polarization and political violence, understanding the psychological roots of extremism is increasingly important. Prior research shows that identity fusion predicts willingness to engage in extreme acts. We evaluate…
Argumentation theory is a powerful paradigm that formalizes a type of commonsense reasoning that aims to simulate the human ability to resolve a specific problem in an intelligent manner. A classical argumentation process takes into account…
Frequently we revise our first opinions after talking over with other individuals because we get convinced. Argumentation is a verbal and social process aimed at convincing. It includes conversation and persuasion. In this case, the…
We identify robust statistical patterns in the frequency and severity of violent attacks by terrorist organizations as they grow and age. Using group-level static and dynamic analyses of terrorist events worldwide from 1968-2008 and a…
We introduce a simple, geometric model of opinion polarization. It is a model of political persuasion, as well as marketing and advertising, utilizing social values. It focuses on the interplay between different topics and persuasion…
An SEIRS epidemic with disease fatalities is introduced in a growing population (modelled as a super-critical linear birth and death process). The study of the initial phase of the epidemic is stochastic, while the analysis of the major…
Compartmental models are valuable tools for investigating infectious diseases. Researchers building such models typically begin with a simple structure where compartments correspond to individuals with different epidemiological statuses,…
People sometimes change their opinions when they discuss things with other people. Researchers can use mathematics to study opinion changes in simplifications of real-life situations. These simplified settings, which are examples of…
This paper is about how we study statistical methods. As an example, it uses the random regressions model, in which the intercept and slope of cluster-specific regression lines are modeled as a bivariate random effect. Maximizing this…
In (Deffuant et al., 2002), we proposed a simple model of opinion dynamics, which we used to simulate the influence of extremists in a population. Simulations were run without any specific interaction structure and varying the simulation…
We introduce an Ising approach to study the spread of malware. The Ising spins up and down are used to represent two states--online and offline--of the nodes in the network. Malware is allowed to propagate amongst online nodes and the rate…
The conflicts between armed groups often go on for years. The classical model of such conflicts accounts for the number of participants and for the technology level of the equipment of the groups. Below we extend this model in order to…
Complex adaptive systems (CAS) are ubiquitous in nature. They are basic in social sciences. An overview of CAS is given with emphasize on the occurrence of bad side effects to seemingly wise decisions. Hence application to terrorism is…
Social media is a modern person's digital voice to project and engage with new ideas and mobilise communities $\unicode{x2013}$ a power shared with extremists. Given the societal risks of unvetted content-moderating algorithms for…
When groups compete for members, the resulting dynamics of human social activity may be understandable with simple mathematical models. Here, we apply techniques from dynamical systems and perturbation theory to analyze a theoretical…