The mitigating effect of external shocks on opinion polarization

The mutual distrust and hostility between political parties exacerbate public ideological polarization. As group polarization intensifies, can external shocks act as buffers to mitigate extreme group opinion polarization? Here, we construct a model embedded with attraction and repulsion rules to simulate the evolution of two groups toward extreme opinion polarization, where single or periodic external shocks serve as buffering interventions to intervene in this polarization process. Our results show that a single external shock with adequate intensity and timely implementation can markedly suppress or reverse the formation of extreme opinion clusters in the model. For periodic external shocks, the shock period is tightly correlated with the intensity threshold required to reverse political attitude polarization among groups. As the shock interval decreases, the intensity required to alleviate or reverse polarization drops significantly. This indicates that the polarized state of group attitudes can be relieved and regulated by optimizing relevant intervention strategies.