Related papers: Algorithmic bias amplifies opinion polarization: A…
A central role in shaping the experience of users online is played by recommendation algorithms. On the one hand they help retrieving content that best suits users taste, but on the other hand they may give rise to the so called "filter…
Opinion dynamics is of paramount importance as it provides insights into the complex dynamics of opinion propagation and social relationship adjustment. It is assumed in most of the previous works that social relationships evolve much…
Understanding social polarization requires integrating insights from psychology, sociology, and complex systems science. Agent-based modeling provides a natural framework to combine perspectives from different fields and explore how…
Understanding and quantifying polarization in social systems is important because of many reasons. It could for instance help to avoid segregation and conflicts in the society or to control polarized debates and predict their outcomes. In…
Members of different political groups not only disagree about issues but also dislike and distrust each other. While social media can amplify this emotional divide -- called affective polarization by political scientists -- there is a lack…
In sociological research, the study of macro processes, such as opinion polarization, faces a fundamental problem, the so-called micro-macro problem. To overcome this problem, we combine empirical experimental research on biased argument…
Timeline algorithms are key parts of online social networks, but during recent years they have been blamed for increasing polarization and disagreement in our society. Opinion-dynamics models have been used to study a variety of phenomena…
Confirmation bias and peer pressure both have substantial impacts on the formation of collective decisions. Nevertheless, few attempts have been made to study how the interplay between these two mechanisms affects public opinion evolution.…
Recently, social phenomena have received a lot of attention not only from social scientists, but also from physicists, mathematicians and computer scientists, in the emerging interdisciplinary field of complex system science. Opinion…
Recently, social debates have been marked by increased polarization of social groups. Such polarization not only implies that groups cannot reach a consensus on fundamental questions but also materializes in more modular social…
Many projects (both practical and academic) have designed algorithms to match users to content they will enjoy under the assumption that user's preferences and opinions do not change with the content they see. Evidence suggests that…
Politically divided societies are also often divided emotionally: people like and trust those with similar political views (in-group favoritism) while disliking and distrusting those with different views (out-group animosity). This…
For decades, researchers have been trying to understand how people form their opinions. This quest has become even more pressing with the widespread usage of online social networks and social media, which seem to amplify the already…
The suggestions generated by most existing recommender systems are known to suffer from a lack of diversity, and other issues like popularity bias. As a result, they have been observed to promote well-known "blockbuster" items, and to…
We generalize Galam's model of opinion spreading by introducing three competing choices. At each update, the population is randomly divided in groups of three agents, whose members adopt the opinion of the local majority. In the case of a…
Recent years have seen a marked increase in the spread of misinformation, a phenomenon which has been accelerated and amplified by social media such as Facebook and Twitter. While some actors spread misinformation to push a specific agenda,…
Models of opinion dynamics play a major role in various disciplines, including economics, political science, psychology, and social science, as they provide a framework for analysis and intervention. In spite of the numerous mathematical…
Recent studies suggest that social media usage -- while linked to an increased diversity of information and perspectives for users -- has exacerbated user polarization on many issues. A popular theory for this phenomenon centers on the…
The process of opinion formation through synthesis and contrast of different viewpoints has been the subject of many studies in economics and social sciences. Today, this process manifests itself also in online social networks and social…
Philosophical accounts of persuasion often assume that shared evidence and rational argumentation should lead to a convergence of views between peers, yet everyday discourse often suggests otherwise. In this study, we use large language…