SKM 2023 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme
SOE 1: Tutorial: Stochastic Processes of Opinion Formation (joint session SOE/TUT)
SOE 1.2: Tutorium
Sonntag, 26. März 2023, 16:45–17:30, HSZ 02
When intuition fails: the complex effects of assimilative and repulsive influence on opinion polarization — •Michael Maes1, Andreas Flache2, Shuo Liu3, and Haoxiang Xia3 — 1Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany — 2University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands — 3Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China
There is a debate about whether personalized services of social-media platforms contribute to the rise of bipolarization of political opinions. On the one hand, it is argued that personalized services of online social networks generate filter bubbles limiting contact between users who disagree. This reduces opportunities for assimilative social influence between users from different camps and prevents opinion convergence. On the other hand, empirical research also indicated that exposing users to content from the opposite political spectrum can activate the counter-part of assimilative influence, repulsive influence. Fostering contact that leads to opinion assimilation and limiting contacts likely to induce repulsive interactions, it has been concluded, may therefore prevent bipolarization. We demonstrate that these conclusions fail to capture the complexity that assimilative and repulsive influence generate in social networks. Sometimes, more assimilative influence can actually lead to more and not less opinion bipolarization. Likewise, increasing the exposure of users to like-minded individuals sometimes intensifies opinion polarization.