Why more contact may increase cultural polarization

Details Why more contact may increase cultural polarization Why more contact may increase cultural polarization

2006-04-24

arxiv.org/abs/physics/0604196v1

Physics

Physics and Society

20 pages, 6 figures, Paper to be presented in the Mathematical Sociology Session of the 101st Annual Meeting of the American S

Scientific paper

Following Axelrod's model of cultural dissemination, formal computational studies of cultural influence have suggested that more contact between geographically distant regions may increase overall cultural homogeneity and reduce societal polarization. In the present paper, we show that two plausible modifications of Axelrod's original mechanism turn the effect of range of communication upside-down. We assume a continuous rather than a nominal state space and we add the negative side of social influence, heterophobia and rejection. Computational analyses of the resulting model demonstrate that now a larger range of contact can increase rather than decrease the extent of polarization in the population. Further experiments identify the window of conditions under which the effect obtains.

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