Polarization and Persuasion as Opposite Integration Strategies in Collective Models

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the known opinion formation problem from the point of view of computational collective intelligence research, with consideration to some sociological research in the area of social influence. We study two approaches to opinion formation – polarization and persuasion – as viewed from the point of view of our collective model (as opinion integration strategies). We detail both approaches and then conduct simulational experiments to study them both in single and averaged over multiple runs. We found special interest in the polarization strategy, which we want to use in the future as a basis for a new measure of collectives behavior.

Keywords:

• Knowledge diffusion
• multi-agent simulation
• opinion formation
• persuasion
• polarization