Biased assimilation, homophily, and the dynamics of polarization

By Pranav Dandekar, Ashish Goel, David T. Lee. 2012

517 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We study the issue of polarization in society through a model of opinion formation. We say an opinion formation process is polarizing if it results in increased divergence of opinions. Empirical studies have shown that homophily, i.e., greater interaction between like-minded individuals, results in polarization. However, we show that DeGroot’s well-known model of opinion formation based on repeated averaging can never be polarizing, even if individuals are arbitrarily homophilous. We generalize DeGroot’s model to account for a phenomenon well known in social psychology as biased assimilation: When presented with mixed or inconclusive evidence on a complex issue, individuals draw undue support for their initial position, thereby arriving at a more extreme opinion. We show that in a simple model of homophilous networks, our biased opinion formation process results in polarization if individuals are sufficiently biased. In other words, homophily alone, without biased assimilation, is not sufficient to polarize society. Quite interestingly, biased assimilation also provides a framework to analyze the polarizing effect of Internet-based recommender systems that show us personalized content.

Subfields: Communication, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

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Citations in the corpus

How algorithmic confounding in recommendation systems increases homogeneity and decreases utility (2017, background): “These systems also have the potential to create “echo-chambers,” which result in polarized behavior [16].”
Filter Bubbles, Echo Chambers, and Online News Consumption (2016, unknown): “This definition of segregation, which is in line with past work (Dandekar et al., 2013), intuitively captures the idea that segregated populations are those in which pairs of individuals are, on average, far apart.”
Models of Social Influence: Towards the Next Frontiers (2017, background): “Based on models of social-influence, some warn that the personalization of Internet services can contribute to processes of opinion polarization (Dandekar et al. 2013; Mäs & Bischofberger 2015).”
Data Feedback Loops: Model-driven Amplification of Dataset Biases (2022, background): “, 2017), online polarization (Dandekar et al., 2013), and affirmative action, admissions, and hiring (Coate & Loury, 1993; Liu et al.”
Novel Multidimensional Models of Opinion Dynamics in Social Networks (2015, background): “The backbone of many mathematical models, explaining the clustering of continuous opinions, is the idea of homophily or biased assimilation [1]: a social actor readily adopts opinions of like-minded individuals (under the assumption that its small differences of opinion with others are not evaluated”
Opinion Dynamics in Social Networks With Hostile Camps: Consensus vs. Polarization (2015, background): “[24], [25] or, more generally, biased assimilation [26]: agents readily adopt opinions of like-minded neighbors, accepting the”