Department of Education, Languages, Intercultural Studies, Literature and Psychology, University of Florence, Florence, Italy.
Center for Study of Complex Dynamics (CSDC), University of Florence, Florence, Italy.
PLoS One. 2020 Nov 25;15(11):e0242148. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0242148. eCollection 2020.
In many Western societies there are rising concerns about increasing polarization in public debate. However, statistics on private attitudes paint a different picture: the average attitudes in societies are more moderate and remain rather stable over time. The present paper presents an agent-based model of how such discrepancies between public opinion and private attitudes develop at the scale of micro-societies. Based on social psychological theorizing, the model distinguishes between two types of agents: a) those seeking to gain or maintain a good reputation and status, and b) those seeking to promote group harmony by reaching consensus. We characterized these different types of agents by different decision rules for either voicing their opinion or remaining silent, based on the behavior of their proximal network. Results of the model simulations show that even when the private attitudes of the agents are held constant, publicly expressed opinions can oscillate and (depending on the reputational concerns of individual actors) situations can occur in which minorities as well as majorities are silenced. We conclude that the macro-level consequences of micro-level decisions to either voice an opinion or remain silent provide a foundation for better understanding how public opinions are shaped. Moreover, we discuss the conditions under which public opinion could be considered a good representation of private attitudes in a society.
在许多西方社会，人们对公共辩论中日益加剧的两极分化表示担忧。然而，关于私人态度的统计数据描绘了一幅不同的图景：社会的平均态度更加温和，并且随着时间的推移保持相对稳定。本文提出了一个基于主体的模型，用于解释在微观社会层面上，公众意见和私人态度之间的这种差异是如何发展的。基于社会心理学理论，该模型区分了两种类型的主体：a）那些寻求获得或维持良好声誉和地位的主体，以及 b）那些通过达成共识来促进群体和谐的主体。我们通过主体的近邻网络的行为，为不同类型的主体赋予了不同的表达意见或保持沉默的决策规则，从而对这些不同类型的主体进行了特征描述。模型模拟的结果表明，即使主体的私人态度保持不变，公开表达的意见也可能会出现波动，并且（取决于个体行为者的声誉关注）可能会出现少数派和多数派都被压制的情况。我们的结论是，微观层面上决定表达意见或保持沉默的决策对宏观层面上公众意见的形成提供了一个理解基础。此外，我们还讨论了在什么条件下，公众意见可以被认为是社会中私人态度的良好代表。
