On May 7 2020 we published the paper ‘The polarization within and across individuals: the hierarchical Ising opinion model’ in the Journal of Complex networks.

Polarization of opinions involves psychological processes as well as group dynamics. However, the interaction between the within individual dynamics of attitude formation and across person polarization is rarely studied. By modelling individual attitudes as Ising networks of attitude elements, and approximating this behaviour by the cusp singularity, we developed a fundamentally new model of social dynamics.

In this hierarchical model, agents behave either discretely or continuously depending on their attention to the issue. At the individual level the model reproduces the mere thought effect and resistance to persuasion. At the social level the model implies polarization and the persuasion paradox. We propose a new intervention for escaping polarization in bounded confidence models of opinion dynamics.

Han van der Maas, Jonas Dalege, and Lourens Waldorp

Psychological Methods, UvA