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Recently, there has been significant attention on online political incivility. While previous research suggests that uncivil political comments lead people to be less willing to see more comments on the same issue, two critical questions…
Polarization between groups is a major topic of contemporary societal debate as well as of research into intergroup relations. Formal modelers of opinion dynamics try to explain how intergroup polarization can arise from simple first…
Ingroup favoritism, the tendency to favor ingroup over outgroup, is often explained as a product of intergroup conflict, or correlations between group tags and behavior. Such accounts assume that group membership is meaningful, whereas…
The prevalence of online hate and abuse is a pressing global concern. While tackling such societal harms is a priority for research across the social sciences, it is a difficult task, in part because of the magnitude of the problem. User…
Unlike the more observable phenomenon of group opinion reinforcement, self-censorship online has received comparatively less attention. Our goal in this work is to dissect the phenomena of self-censorship and to examine the implications of…
Collectives adapt their network structure to the challenges they face. It has been hypothesized that collectives experiencing a real or imagined threat from an outgroup tend to consolidate behind a few influential group members, and that…
We performed a massive study of the dynamics of group deliberation among several websites containing millions of opinions on topics ranging from books to media. Contrary to the common phenomenon of group polarization observed offline, we…
This study investigates how the majority group influences individual judgment formation and expression in anonymous, spontaneous online conversations. Drawing on theories of social conformity and anti-conformity, we analyze everyday…
Social media platforms like Facebook and Reddit host thousands of user-governed online communities. These platforms sanction communities that frequently violate platform policies; however, public perceptions of such sanctions remain…
Countries across the world have instituted unprecedented restrictions on freedom of movement, privacy and individual rights to control the spread of COVID-19. These measures tend to have been derived from communally orientated East Asian…
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…
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…
As a social animal, human conforms to the customs of society, and their behavior and opinions are greatly influenced by social norms [5]. Accordingly, people choose to hide their opinion in front of others when they feel their idea is…
In this study, groups who could not reach a consensus were investigated using the group polarization paradigm. The purpose was to explore the conditions leading to intragroup disagreement and attitude change following disagreement among 269…
Individuals belong to certain social groups in search of a sense of belonging, pride, stability, and significance. Perceiving the group to which one belongs as an "in-group" and other groups as "out-groups" often leads to harmful and…
Intergroup contact has long been considered as an effective strategy to reduce prejudice between groups. However, recent studies suggest that exposure to opposing groups in online platforms can exacerbate polarization. To further understand…
We often treat social media as a lens onto society. How might that lens distort the popularity of political and social viewpoints? We examine discrepancies between publicly posted and privately surveyed opinions within communities,…
Collective opinions affect civic participation, governance, and societal norms. Due to the influence of opinion dynamics, many models of their formation and evolution have been developed. A commonly used approach for the study of opinion…
We study an outcome of a vote in a population of voters exposed to an externally applied bias in favour of one of two potential candidates. The population consists of ordinary individuals, that are in majority and tend to align their…
This study examines social media users' preferences for the use of platform-wide moderation in comparison to user-controlled, personalized moderation tools to regulate three categories of norm-violating content - hate speech, sexually…