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SUMMARY:Political Polarization\, Social Norms\, and Sorting: An Agent-base
 d Social Sampling Model - Gordon Brown (University of Warwick)
DTSTART:20240320T160000Z
DTEND:20240320T170000Z
UID:TALK211753@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Yara Kyrychenko
DESCRIPTION:I will describe a cognitive model of social influence and appl
 y it to several social network phenomena including polarization\, social c
 ontagion\, and sorting/issue alignment. We use agent-based modelling to li
 nk individual-level and network-level effects. Social norms and individual
 s’ private attitudes are assumed to be represented as distributions rath
 er than single points. People located within a social network observe the 
 behaviour of their network neighbours and hence infer the social distribut
 ion of particular attitudes and behaviours.  It is assumed that (a) people
  dislike behaving in ways that are extreme within their neighbourhood soci
 al norm (social extremeness aversion assumption)\, and hence tend to confo
 rm and (b) people prefer to behave consistently with their own underlying 
 attitudes (authenticity preference assumption) hence minimizing dissonance
 . Expressed attitudes and behaviour reflect a utility-maximizing compromis
 e between these opposing principles. A number of polarisation-related soci
 al network phenomena emerge in the model. Sorting (increased correlation o
 f attitudes) is shown to emerge only when agents seek to differentiate the
 mselves from an outgroup as well as align with an ingroup.\n\n\nThis talk 
 is in person only and hosted by David Young and Lee De-Wit.
LOCATION:Ground Floor Lecture Theatre\, Department of Psychology\, Downing
  Site\, Cambridge
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