Emergence of Polarized Ideological Opinions in Multidimensional Topic Spaces

Opinion polarization is on the rise, causing concerns for the openness of public debates. Additionally, extreme opinions on different topics often show significant correlations. The dynamics leading to these polarized ideological opinions pose a challenge: How can such correlations emerge, without a...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales:	Fabian Baumann, Philipp Lorenz-Spreen, Igor M. Sokolov, Michele Starnini
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	American Physical Society 2021
Materias:	Physics QC1-999
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/2a98ccb77803425398f68397103649b4
Etiquetas:	Agregar Etiqueta Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!

id	oai:doaj.org-article:2a98ccb77803425398f68397103649b4
record_format	dspace
spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:2a98ccb77803425398f68397103649b42021-12-02T14:09:11ZEmergence of Polarized Ideological Opinions in Multidimensional Topic Spaces10.1103/PhysRevX.11.0110122160-3308https://doaj.org/article/2a98ccb77803425398f68397103649b42021-01-01T00:00:00Zhttp://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.11.011012http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.11.011012https://doaj.org/toc/2160-3308Opinion polarization is on the rise, causing concerns for the openness of public debates. Additionally, extreme opinions on different topics often show significant correlations. The dynamics leading to these polarized ideological opinions pose a challenge: How can such correlations emerge, without assuming them a priori in individual preferences or in a preexisting social structure? Here, we propose a simple model that qualitatively reproduces ideological opinion states found in survey data, even between rather unrelated, but sufficiently controversial, topics. Inspired by skew coordinate systems recently proposed in natural language processing models, we solidify these intuitions in a formalism of opinions unfolding in a multidimensional space where topics form a nonorthogonal basis. Opinions evolve according to the social interactions among the agents, which are ruled by homophily: Two agents sharing similar opinions are more likely to interact. The model features phase transitions between a global consensus, opinion polarization, and ideological states. Interestingly, the ideological phase emerges by relaxing the assumption of an orthogonal basis of the topic space, i.e., if topics thematically overlap. Furthermore, we analytically and numerically show that these transitions are driven by the controversialness of the topics discussed; the more controversial the topics, the more likely are opinions to be correlated. Our findings shed light upon the mechanisms driving the emergence of ideology in the formation of opinions.Fabian BaumannPhilipp Lorenz-SpreenIgor M. SokolovMichele StarniniAmerican Physical SocietyarticlePhysicsQC1-999ENPhysical Review X, Vol 11, Iss 1, p 011012 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Physics QC1-999
spellingShingle	Physics QC1-999 Fabian Baumann Philipp Lorenz-Spreen Igor M. Sokolov Michele Starnini Emergence of Polarized Ideological Opinions in Multidimensional Topic Spaces
description	Opinion polarization is on the rise, causing concerns for the openness of public debates. Additionally, extreme opinions on different topics often show significant correlations. The dynamics leading to these polarized ideological opinions pose a challenge: How can such correlations emerge, without assuming them a priori in individual preferences or in a preexisting social structure? Here, we propose a simple model that qualitatively reproduces ideological opinion states found in survey data, even between rather unrelated, but sufficiently controversial, topics. Inspired by skew coordinate systems recently proposed in natural language processing models, we solidify these intuitions in a formalism of opinions unfolding in a multidimensional space where topics form a nonorthogonal basis. Opinions evolve according to the social interactions among the agents, which are ruled by homophily: Two agents sharing similar opinions are more likely to interact. The model features phase transitions between a global consensus, opinion polarization, and ideological states. Interestingly, the ideological phase emerges by relaxing the assumption of an orthogonal basis of the topic space, i.e., if topics thematically overlap. Furthermore, we analytically and numerically show that these transitions are driven by the controversialness of the topics discussed; the more controversial the topics, the more likely are opinions to be correlated. Our findings shed light upon the mechanisms driving the emergence of ideology in the formation of opinions.
format	article
author	Fabian Baumann Philipp Lorenz-Spreen Igor M. Sokolov Michele Starnini
author_facet	Fabian Baumann Philipp Lorenz-Spreen Igor M. Sokolov Michele Starnini
author_sort	Fabian Baumann
title	Emergence of Polarized Ideological Opinions in Multidimensional Topic Spaces
title_short	Emergence of Polarized Ideological Opinions in Multidimensional Topic Spaces
title_full	Emergence of Polarized Ideological Opinions in Multidimensional Topic Spaces
title_fullStr	Emergence of Polarized Ideological Opinions in Multidimensional Topic Spaces
title_full_unstemmed	Emergence of Polarized Ideological Opinions in Multidimensional Topic Spaces
title_sort	emergence of polarized ideological opinions in multidimensional topic spaces
publisher	American Physical Society
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/2a98ccb77803425398f68397103649b4
work_keys_str_mv	AT fabianbaumann emergenceofpolarizedideologicalopinionsinmultidimensionaltopicspaces AT philipplorenzspreen emergenceofpolarizedideologicalopinionsinmultidimensionaltopicspaces AT igormsokolov emergenceofpolarizedideologicalopinionsinmultidimensionaltopicspaces AT michelestarnini emergenceofpolarizedideologicalopinionsinmultidimensionaltopicspaces
_version_	1718391895123558400

Emergence of Polarized Ideological Opinions in Multidimensional Topic Spaces

Ejemplares similares