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How social rewiring preferences bridge polarized communities
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Orientador(es)
Resumo(s)
Recently, social debates have been marked by increased polarization of social groups. Such polarization not only implies that groups cannot reach a consensus on fundamental questions but also materializes in more modular social spaces/networks that further amplify the risks of polarization in less polarizing topics. How can network adaptation bridge different communities when individuals reveal homophilic or heterophilic social rewiring preferences? Here, we consider information diffusion processes that capture a continuum from simple to complex contagion processes. We use a computational model to understand how fast and to what extent individual rewiring preferences bridge initially weakly connected communities and how likely it is for them to reach a consensus. We show that homophilic and heterophilic rewiring have different impacts depending on the type of opinion spread. First, in the case of complex opinion diffusion, we show that even polarized social networks can reach a population-wide consensus without reshaping their underlying network. When polarized social structures amplify opinion polarization, heterophilic rewiring preferences play a key role in creating bridges between communities and facilitating a population-wide consensus. Secondly, in the case of simple opinion diffusion, homophilic rewiring preferences are more capable of fostering consensus and avoiding a co-existence (dynamical polarization) of opinions. Hence, across a broad profile of simple and complex opinion diffusion processes, only a mix of heterophilic and homophilic rewiring preferences avoids polarization and promotes consensus.
Descrição
Borges, H. M., Vasconcelos, V. V., & Pinheiro, F. L. (2024). How social rewiring preferences bridge polarized communities. Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, 180, 1-8. Article 114594. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2312.08088, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chaos.2024.114594 --- FLP acknowledges the financial support provided by FCT Portugal under the project UIDB/04152/2020 – Centro de Investigação em Gestão de Informação (MagIC). VVV acknowledges funding from ENLENS under the project “The Cost of Large-Scale Transitions: Introducing Effective Targeted Incentives”
Palavras-chave
Social contagion Adaptive social networks Opinion dynamics Polarization Statistical and Nonlinear Physics Mathematical Physics General Physics and Astronomy Applied Mathematics