Regensburg 2022 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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SYSO: Collective Social Dynamics from Animals to Humans

SYSO 1: Collective social dynamics from animals to humans

SYSO 1.3: Hauptvortrag

Donnerstag, 8. September 2022, 10:30–11:00, H1

Validating argument-based opinion dynamics with survey experiments — •Sven Banisch — Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Technology Futures, Germany

We combine experimental research on the biased processing of arguments with a computational theory of collective opinion dynamics. While the biased processing of arguments has been frequently reported in social-psychological literature, its integration into argument-based models of opinion dynamics has been missing. In this paper we operationalize the argument communication process employed in these models in conjunction with an experimental design developed to measure biased processing and the resulting attitude changes in the context of energy production technologies. This allows us to analytically compute the expected attitude change through exposure to an unbiased set of arguments for different strengths of biased processing. Calibrating the microlevel assumptions with the experimental data shows a clear signature of moderate biased processing. We further extend the model by incorporating an unbiased external information source providing random arguments at a certain rate (as opposed to receiving arguments from others). The macroscopic opinion distributions emerging from this at the collective level are one-sided clearly in favor (green) or against (coal) a technology and match the surveyed attitudes if we control for the impact of social influence. Sociological model-building reveals that the relationship between biased processing and attitude polarization is not as direct as typical assumed in the psychological literature.