Explosive opinion polarization and depolarization with asymmetric perception.

Area of Science:

• Sociophysics
• Computational Social Science
• Network Science

Background:

• Societal divisions manifest across economic, political, religious, and ideological spectra.
• Understanding polarization mechanisms is vital for developing depolarization strategies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how asymmetric opinion perception influences polarization and depolarization in structured communities.
• To analyze the role of nonlinear incidence terms and social network modularity in opinion dynamics.

Main Methods:

• Modeling asymmetric opinion perception using nonlinear incidence terms.
• Leveraging modular social network structure and adjacency matrix eigenvectors.
• Developing a mean-field approximation for analyzing phase transitions and bifurcations.

Main Results:

• Asymmetric perception leads to explosive polarization and hysteresis-driven abrupt depolarization.
• Nonlinear incidence terms result in first-order phase transitions and specific bifurcation behaviors.
• Opinion polarization patterns are linked to social network communities and transition dynamics.

Conclusions:

• Asymmetric opinion perception is a key driver of polarization and depolarization dynamics.
• The study provides a theoretical framework for understanding opinion shifts in structured populations.
• Findings offer insights into mitigating societal divisions through network-informed strategies.