When Pull Turns to Shove: A Continuous-Time Model for Opinion Dynamics
arXiv:2005.05478 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevResearch.2.043001
Abstract
Accurate modeling of opinion dynamics has the potential to help us understand polarization and what makes effective political discourse possible or impossible. Here, we use physics-based methods to model the evolution of political opinions within a continuously distributed population. We utilize a network-free system of determining political influence and a local-attraction, distal-repulsion dynamic for reaction to perceived content. Our approach allows for the incorporation of intergroup bias such that messages from trusted in-group sources enjoy greater leeway than out-group ones. We are able to extrapolate these nonlinear microscopic dynamics to macroscopic population distributions by using probabilistic functions representing biased environments. The framework we put forward can reproduce real-world political distributions and experimentally observed dynamics, and is amenable to further refinement as more data becomes available.
Main text and appendices: 14 pages including references, with 11 figures