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Attraction by pairwise coherence explains the emergence of ideological sorting
Federico Zimmerman1,2,3,4,5,6, Lucía Pedraza4,7, Joaquín Navajas1,2,3
1Laboratorio de Neurociencia, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Av. Figueroa Alcorta 7350, C1428BCW, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
PNAS Nexus
|July 31, 2024
Summary
Political polarization drives ideological sorting, where unrelated opinions become correlated. This study reveals that pairwise-coherence favoritism, not just homophily, is key to this social dynamic.
Area of Science:
- Social dynamics
- Political science
- Computational social science
Background:
- Political polarization is increasing globally, leading to tribalism and reduced civic discourse.
- Ideological sorting, where opinions on unrelated issues become correlated, is a key feature of polarization.
- The micro-level mechanisms driving ideological sorting remain poorly understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the micro-level mechanisms that lead to ideological sorting in social dynamic systems.
- To model the emergence of ideological sorting based on individual interaction mechanisms.
- To test the role of homophily and pairwise-coherence favoritism in ideological sorting.
Main Methods:
- Developed a multidimensional agent-based model incorporating homophily and pairwise-coherence favoritism.
- Numerically integrated the model's master equations to simulate system dynamics.
- Compared model outcomes with empirical data from 24,035 opinions across 67 topics.
Main Results:
- Ideological sorting emerged only in models that included pairwise-coherence favoritism.
- Pairwise-coherence favoritism was significantly present in political attitude datasets.
- This mechanism was absent in datasets not related to politics.
Conclusions:
- Pairwise-coherence favoritism is a crucial micro-level mechanism driving ideological sorting.
- This finding helps explain the pervasiveness of ideological sorting in polarized societies.
- Combining system dynamics modeling with empirical data analysis provides insights into social phenomena.
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