Opinion Dynamics and Collective Decisions: Procedures, Behavior, and Systems Dynamics
Final Report Abstract
The project contributed to our understanding how humans interact, deliberate and decide in continuous opinion dynamics facing a collective decision about numerical values. This covers epistemic problems, coordination problems and the formation and aggregation of preferences. In particular, it is show for preference aggregation how framing of a mechanism for redistribution changes the level of redistribution. People redistribute more when they collectively decide on the minimal income but less when they decide about the tax rate. This effect vanishes with increase transparency of final incomes. For epistemic decisions, experiments show that majority rule tends to bring groups in a mindset which reduces accuracy of group estimates. Unanimous or independent decisions perform better. In a large data exploration project, stylized fact of real world opinion landscapes from survey items, e.g. about the left-right self-placement were extracted. Opinion landscapes often show a five peak structure, with a large central peak, two moderate off-central peaks and small peaks at the extremes. The project also uncovers some potential systemic dynamics how opinion landscapes evolve in societies. In particular, the robustness of clustering and fragmentation through the intrinsic driving forces of bounded confidence and assimilation have been pointed out. Further on, an intrinsic tendency for an oscillatory behavior of public opinion was found when bounds of confidence are heterogeneous. Finally, the projects provided some recommendations on the design of voting systems and of institutions to elicit collective intelligence.
Publications
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(2016). Robust clustering in generalized bounded confidence models. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 19(4), 7
Kurahashi-Nakamura, T., Mäs, M., & Lorenz, J.
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(2017). Just don’t call it a tax! framing in an experiment on voting and redistribution. Journal of Experimental Political Science, 4(3), 183–194
Lorenz, J., Paetzel, F., & Tepe, M.
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(2017). Transparency diminishes framing-effects in voting on redistribution: Some experimental evidence. European Journal of Political Economy, 55, 169–184
Paetzel, F., Lorenz, J., & Tepe, M.
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(2018). Social cohesion and its correlates: A comparison of western and asian societies. Comparative Sociology, 17(3-4), 426–455
Delhey, J., Boehnke, K., Dragolov, G., Ignácz, Z. S., Larsen, M., Lorenz, J., & Koch, M.
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(2019). The triple-filter bubble: Using agent-based modelling to test a metatheoretical framework for the emergence of filter bubbles and echo chambers. British Journal of Social Psychology, 58, 129–149
Geschke, D., Lorenz, J., & Holtz, P.
