Ideology, communication and polarization

Abstract

Ideologically committed minds form the basis of political polarization, but ideologically guided communication can further entrench and exacerbate polarization depending on the structures of ideologies and social network dynamics on which cognition and communication operate. Combining a well-established connectionist model of cognition and a well-validated computational model of social influence dynamics on social networks, we develop a new model of ideological cognition and communication on dynamic social networks and explore its implications for ideological political discourse. In particular, we explicitly model ideologically filtered interpretation of social information, ideological commitment to initial opinion, and communication on dynamically evolving social networks, and examine how these factors combine to generate ideologically divergent and polarized political discourse. The results show that ideological interpretation and commitment tend towards polarized discourse. Nonetheless, communication and social network dynamics accelerate and amplify polarization. Furthermore, when agents sever social ties with those that disagree with them (i.e. structure their social networks by homophily), even non-ideological agents may form an echo chamber and form a cluster of opinions that resemble an ideological group. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The political brain: neurocognitive and computational mechanisms’.

The cognitive and perceptual correlates of ideological attitudes: a data-driven approach

“…novel insights that will help guide future research, such as the role of evidence accumulation rates and impulsivity in dogmatism, or the manifest relationship between political conservatism and cognitive caution in speeded perceptual decisions (figures 4 and 5). These findings underscore thefruitfulness of examining the relationships between highlevel ideological attitudes and low-level cognitive processes, and suggest that ideological beliefs are amenable to careful cognitive and computational analysis [20,101]. Additionally, the results support predictive models of ideological orientations that incorporate cognitive and personality factors (figures 4, 6 and 7), carving the way for more interdisciplinary dialogue in terms of psychological methodology.…”

Bringing political psychology into the study of populism

“…In this short piece, I argue that political psychology is particularly promising in this regard, since it can bring to the fore expertise in the reasons why individuals believe in the populist set of ideas and end up endorsing populist forces of different kinds. As various contributions to this special issue reveal (see, for instance, the articles written by Haas, Baker and Gonzalez [27] as well as Kashima et al [28]), the next frontier is to delve deeper into the cognitive and neural processes that underpin how and why such ideological beliefs come about, and then situate this back into political theory. Therefore, in this contribution, I discuss two topics that are of special interest when it comes to bringing political psychology into the study of populism: political identities and conspiracy theories.…”

Computational and neurocognitive approaches to the political brain: key insights and future avenues for political neuroscience

“…Kashima et al . [ 5 ] explore how computational models of social influence in networks relate to ideological discourse. Using a computational model of communication, the authors identify four subtypes of potential ideological agents according to their level of cognitive bias and motivational ego-involvement when interpreting and storing information in memory.…”

“…Hence, the computational modelling employed by Kashima et al . [ 5 ] illustrates the subtle ways in which cognitive dispositions can interact with political contexts to shape the course of polarization. As they conclude, micro-psychological and macro-historical processes modulate each other in profound ways.…”

“…Linked to this, several lines of research converged on the mechanisms of social influence , positing how it affects individuals differentially based on their cognitive traits [ 5 – 7 ], motivations [ 19 ] and cultural context [ 20 ]. Toxic ideologies become internalized by individuals through cyclical [ 15 ] and addictively self-reinforcing [ 18 ] mechanisms, and it is these socio-cognitive loops that practitioners and equality advocates may need to break in order to achieve ideological open-mindedness and receptivity to evidence.…”