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Modelling Opinion Formation with Physics Tools: Call for Closer Link with Reality

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  • Pawel Sobkowicz

Abstract

The growing field of studies of opinion formation using physical formalisms and computer simulation based tools suffers from relative lack of connection to the 'real world' societal behaviour. Such sociophysics research should aim at explaining observations or at proposing new ones. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, as many works concentrate more on the models themselves than on the social phenomena. Moreover, the simplifications proposed in simulations often sacrifice realism on the altar of computability. There are several ways to improve the value of the research, the most important by promoting truly multidisciplinary cooperation between physicists aiming to describe social phenomena and sociologists studying the phenomena in the field. In the specific case of modelling of opinion formation there are a few technical ideas which might bring the computer models much closer to reality, and therefore to improve the predictive value of the sociophysics approach.

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  • Pawel Sobkowicz, 2009. "Modelling Opinion Formation with Physics Tools: Call for Closer Link with Reality," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 12(1), pages 1-11.
    • Handle: RePEc:jas:jasssj:2008-72-2
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    2. Shyam Gouri Suresh & Scott Jeffrey, 2017. "The Consequences of Social Pressures on Partisan Opinion Dynamics," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 43(2), pages 242-259, March.
    3. Botte, Nina & Ryckebusch, Jan & Rocha, Luis E.C., 2022. "Clustering and stubbornness regulate the formation of echo chambers in personalised opinion dynamics," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 599(C).
    4. Wolf, Ingo & Schröder, Tobias & Neumann, Jochen & de Haan, Gerhard, 2015. "Changing minds about electric cars: An empirically grounded agent-based modeling approach," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 269-285.
    5. Shane T. Mueller & Yin-Yin Sarah Tan, 2018. "Cognitive perspectives on opinion dynamics: the role of knowledge in consensus formation, opinion divergence, and group polarization," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 15-48, January.
    6. Francisco J. León-Medina & Jordi Tena-Sánchez & Francisco J. Miguel, 2020. "Fakers becoming believers: how opinion dynamics are shaped by preference falsification, impression management and coherence heuristics," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 385-412, April.
    7. Weimer, Christopher W. & Miller, J.O. & Hill, Raymond R. & Hodson, Douglas D., 2022. "An opinion dynamics model of meta-contrast with continuous social influence forces," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 589(C).
    8. Catherine A. Glass & David H. Glass, 2021. "Social Influence of Competing Groups and Leaders in Opinion Dynamics," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 58(3), pages 799-823, October.
    9. Massimiliano Zanin & David Papo & Miguel Romance & Regino Criado & Santiago Moral, 2016. "The topology of card transaction money flows," Papers 1605.04938, arXiv.org.
    10. Castro, Luis E. & Shaikh, Nazrul I., 2018. "A particle-learning-based approach to estimate the influence matrix of online social networks," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 1-18.
    11. Tommaso Venturini & Pablo Jensen & Bruno Latour, 2015. "Fill in the Gap: A New Alliance for Social and Natural Sciences," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 18(2), pages 1-11.
    12. Zanin, Massimiliano & Papo, David & Romance, Miguel & Criado, Regino & Moral, Santiago, 2016. "The topology of card transaction money flows," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 462(C), pages 134-140.
    13. Shyam Gouri Suresh & Scott Jeffrey, 2017. "The Consequences of Social Pressures on Partisan Opinion Dynamics," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 43(2), pages 242-259, March.

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