Rooting opinions in the minds: a cognitive model and a formal account of opinions and their dynamics

TL;DR

This paper proposes a cognitive model and formal framework to understand how opinions form, change, and spread among individuals, integrating insights from social psychology, computer science, and complexity science.

Contribution

It introduces a novel cognitive theory of opinions paired with a formal model for their dynamics and social influence mechanisms.

Findings

A preliminary model of opinion formation and change.

Formal description of opinion spreading among agents.

Insights into the persistence of opinion changes.

Abstract

The study of opinions, their formation and change, is one of the defining topics addressed by social psychology, but in recent years other disciplines, like computer science and complexity, have tried to deal with this issue. Despite the flourishing of different models and theories in both fields, several key questions still remain unanswered. The understanding of how opinions change and the way they are affected by social influence are challenging issues requiring a thorough analysis of opinion per se but also of the way in which they travel between agents' minds and are modulated by these exchanges. To account for the two-faceted nature of opinions, which are mental entities undergoing complex social processes, we outline a preliminary model in which a cognitive theory of opinions is put forward and it is paired with a formal description of them and of their spreading among minds. Furthermore, investigating social influence also implies the necessity to account for the way in which people change their minds, as a consequence of interacting with other people, and the need to explain the higher or lower persistence of such changes.